PART FIVE.
MYTHS
TRANSFORMED.
MYTHS TRANSFORMED.
In this last section of the book I give a number of late writings of my
father's, various in nature but concerned with, broadly speaking, the
reinterpretation of central elements in the 'mythology' (or legendar-
ium as he called it) to accord with the imperatives of a greatly modified
underlying conception. Some of these papers (there are notable
exceptions) offer exceptional difficulty: fluidity of ideas, ambiguous
and allusive expression, illegible passages. But the greatest problem is
that there is very little firm indication of date external or relative: to
order them into even an approximate sequence of composition seems
impossible (though I believe that virtually all of them come from the
years that saw the writing of Laws and Customs among the Eldar,
the Athrabeth, and late revisions of parts of the Quenta Silmarillion -
the late 1950s, in the aftermath of the publication of The Lord of the
Rings).
i'. In these writings can be read the record of a prolonged interior
debate. Years before this time, the first signs have been seen of
emerging ideas that if pursued would cause massive disturbance in The
Silmarillion: I have shown, as I believe, that when my father first
began to revise and rewrite the existing narratives of the Elder Days,
before The Lord of the Rings was completed, he wrote a version of the
Ainulindale that introduced a radical transformation of the astro-
nomical myth, but that for that time he stayed his hand (pp. 3 - 6, 43).
But now, as will be seen in many of the essays and notes that follow,
he had come to believe that such a vast upheaval was a necessity, that
the cosmos of the old myth was no longer valid; and at the same time
he was impelled to try to construct a more secure 'theoretical' or
'systematic' basis for elements in the legendarium that were not to be
dislodged. With their questionings, their certainties giving way to
doubt, their contradictory resolutions, these writings are to be read
with a sense of intellectual and imaginative stress in the face of such
a dismantling and reconstitution, believed to be an inescapable neces-
sity, but never to be achieved.
The texts, arranged in a very loose 'thematic' sequence, are num-
bered in Roman numerals. Almost all have received very minor editing
(matters of punctuation, insertion of omitted words, and suchlike).
Numbered notes (not present in all cases) follow the individual texts.
I.
I give first a short statement written on two slips found pinned to one
of the typescripts of the Annals of Aman, which would date it to
1958 or later (if my general conclusions about dating are correct,
p. 300).
This descends from the oldest forms of the mythology - when
it was still intended to be no more than another primitive
mythology, though more coherent and less 'savage'. It was
consequently a 'Flat Earth' cosmogony (much easier to manage
anyway): the Matter of Numenor had not been devised.
It is now clear to me that in any case the Mythology must
actually be a 'Mannish' affair. (Men are really only interested in
Men and in Men's ideas and visions.) The High Eldar living and
being tutored by the demiurgic beings must have known, or at
least their writers and loremasters must have known, the 'truth'
(according to their measure of understanding). What we have in
the Silmarillion etc. are traditions (especially personalized, and
centred upon actors, such as Feanor) handed on by Men in
Numenor and later in Middle-earth (Arnor and Gondor); but
already far back - from the first association of the Dunedain
and Elf-friends with the Eldar in Beleriand - blended and
confused with their own Mannish myths and cosmic ideas.
At that point (in reconsideration of the early cosmogonic
parts) I was inclined to adhere to the Flat Earth and the
astronomically absurd business of the making of the Sun and
Moon. But you can make up stories of that kind when you live
among people who have the same general background of
imagination, when the Sun 'really' rises in the East and goes
down in the West, etc. When however (no matter how little
most people know or think about astronomy) it is the general
belief that we live upon a 'spherical' island in 'Space' you cannot
do this any more.
One loses, of course, the dramatic impact of such things as
the first 'incarnates' waking in a starlit world - or the coming
of the High Elves to Middle-earth and unfurling their banners at
the first rising of the Moon.
I have given this first, because - though jotted down at great speed-
it is an express statement of my father's views at this time, in three,
major respects. The astronomical myths of the Elder Days cannot be
regarded as a record of the traditional beliefs of the Eldar in any pure
form, because the High-elves of Aman cannot have been thus
ignorant; and the cosmological elements in The Silmarillion are
essentially a record of mythological ideas, complex in origin, prevailing
among Men.(1) In this note, however, my father appears to have accepted
that these ideas do not in themselves necessarily lead to great upheaval
in the essential 'world-structure' of The Silmarillion, but on the
contrary provide a basis for its retention ('At that point ... I was
inclined to adhere to the Flat Earth'). The conclusion of this brief
statement appears then to be a further and unconnected step: that
the cosmological myth of The Silmarillion was a 'creative error' on the
part of its maker, since it could have no imaginative truth for people
who know very well that such an 'astronomy' is delusory.
As he stated it, this may seem to be an argument of the most
doubtful nature, raising indeed the question, why is the myth of the
Two Trees (which so far as record goes he never showed any intention
to abandon) more acceptable than that of the creation of the Sun and
the Moon from the last fruit and flower of the Trees as they died? Or
indeed, if this is true, how can it be acceptable that the Evening Star is
the Silmaril cut by Beren from Morgoth's crown?
It is at any rate clear, for he stated it unambiguously enough, that he
had come to believe that the art of the 'Sub-creator' cannot, or should
not attempt to, extend to the 'mythical' revelation of a conception of
the shape of the Earth and the origin of the lights of heaven that runs
counter to the known physical truths of his own days: 'You cannot do
this any more'. And this opinion is rendered more complex and
difficult of discussion by the rise in importance of the Eldarin
'loremasters' of Aman, whose intellectual attainments and knowledge
must preclude any idea that a 'false' astronomy could have prevailed
among them. It seems to me that he was devising - from within it - a
fearful weapon against his own creation.
In this brief text he wrote scornfully of 'the astronomically absurd
business of the making of the Sun and Moon'. I think it possible that it
was the actual nature of this myth that led him finally to abandon it. It
is in conception beautiful, and not absurd; but it is exceedingly
'primitive'. Of the original 'Tale of the Sun and Moon' in The Book of
Lost Tales I wrote (1.201):
As a result of this fullness and intensity of description, the origin
of the Sun and Moon in the last fruit and last flower of the Trees has
less of mystery than in the succinct and beautiful language of The
Silmarillion; but also much is said here to emphasize the great size
of the 'Fruit of Noon', and the increase in the heat and brilliance of
the Sunship after its launching, so that the reflection rises less readily
that if the Sun that brilliantly illumines the whole Earth was but one
fruit of Laurelin then Valinor must have been painfully bright and
hot in the days of the Trees. In the early story the last outpourings of
life from the dying Trees are utterly strange and 'enormous', those
of Laurelin portentous, even ominous; the Sun is astoundingly
bright and hot even to the Valar, who are awestruck and disquieted
by what has been done (the Gods knew 'that they had done a greater
thing than they at first knew'); and the anger and distress of certain
of the Valar at the burning light of the Sun enforces the feeling that
in the last fruit of Laurelin a terrible and unforeseen power has been
released.
As the Quenta Silmarillion evolved and changed the myth had been
diminished in the scale and energy of its presentation; indeed in the
final form of the chapter, and in the Annals of Aman, the description
of the actual origin of the Sun and Moon is reduced to a few lines.
Yet even as hope failed and her song faltered, behold! Telperion
bore at last upon a leafless bough one great flower of silver, and
Laurelin a single fruit of gold.
These Yavanna took, and then the Trees died, and their lifeless
stems stand yet in Valinor, a memorial of vanished joy. But the
flower and fruit Yavanna gave to Aule, and Manwe hallowed them;
and Aule and his folk made vessels to hold them and preserve their
radiance, as is said in the Narsilion, the Song of the Sun and Moon.
These vessels the gods gave to Varda, that they might become lamps
of heaven, outshining the ancient stars...
The grave and tranquil words cannot entirely suppress a sense that
there emerges here an outcropping, as it were, uneroded, from an
older level, more fantastic, more bizarre. As indeed it does: such was
the nature of the work, evolved over so many years. But it did not stand
in the work as an isolated myth, a now gratuitous element that could
be excised; for bound up with it was the myth of the Two Trees ('the
Elder Sun and Moon'), giving light through long ages to the land of
Valinor, while Middle-earth lay in darkness, illumined only by the
stars in the firmament of Arda. In that darkness the Elves awoke, the
People of the Stars; and after the death of the Trees the ancient Light
was preserved only in the Silmarils. In 1951 my father had written
(Letters no.131, p. 148):
There was the Light of Valinor made visible in the Two Trees of
Silver and Gold. These were slain by the Enemy out of malice, and
Valinor was darkened, though from them, ere they died utterly,
were derived the lights of Sun and Moon. (A marked difference here
between these legends and most others is that the Sun is not a divine
symbol, but a second-best thing, and the 'light of the Sun' (the world
under the sun) become terms for a fallen world, and a dislocated
imperfect vision.)
But: 'You cannot do this any more.' In the following pages will be seen
how, driven by this conviction, he attempted to undo what he had
done, but to retain what he might. It is remarkable that he never at this
time seems to have felt that what he said in this present note provided
a resolution of the problem that he believed to exist:
What we have in the Silmarillion etc. are traditions... handed on by
Men in Numenor and later in Middle-earth (Arnor and Gondor);
but already far back - from the first association of the Dunedain
and Elf-friends with the Eldar in Beleriand - blended and confused
with their own Mannish myths and cosmic ideas.
It is tempting to suppose that when my father wrote that 'in
reconsideration of the early cosmogonic parts' he was 'inclined to
adhere to the Flat Earth and the astronomically absurd business of the
making of the Sun and Moon', he was referring to Ainulindale' C and
the Annals of Aman. If this were so, it might account for the
developments in Ainulindale' C discussed on pp. 27 - 9, where Arda
becomes a small world within the vastness of Ea - but retains the 'Flat
Earth' characteristics of Ilu from the Ambarkanta and before.
In connection with my father's statement that the legends of The
Silmarillion were traditions handed on by Men in Numenor and later
in the Numenorean kingdoms in Middle-earth, this is a convenient
place to give an entirely isolated note carefully typed (but not on his
later typewriter) on a small slip and headed 'Memorandum'.
The three Great Tales must be Numenorean, and derived
from matter preserved in Gondor. They were part of the
Atanatarion (or the Legendarium of the Fathers of Men).
?Sindarin Nern in Edenedair (or In Adanath).
They are (1) Narn Beren ion Barahir also called Narn
e-Dinuviel (Tale of the Nightingale)
(2) Narn e-mbar Hador containing (a) Narn
i Chin Hurin (or Narn e-'Rach Morgoth Tale of the Curse of
Morgoth); and (b) Narn en El (or Narn e-Dant Gondolin ar
Orthad en El)
Should not these be given as Appendices to the Silmarillion?
In the question with which this ends my father was presumably
distinguishing between long and short forms of the tales. - Two
further notes on this slip, typed at the same time as the above, refer to
'the Tale of Turin' and suggest that he was working on it at that time.(2)
I do not know of any precise evidence to date the great development of
the 'Turin Saga', but it certainly belongs to an earlier period than the
writings given in the latter part of this book.
The idea that the legends of the Elder Days derived from Numenor-
ean tradition appears also in the abandoned typescript (AAm') of the
Annals of Aman that my father made himself (p. 64).(3) In this text the
preamble states:
Here begin the 'Annals of Aman'. Rumil made them in the Elder
Days, and they were held in memory by the Exiles. Those parts
which we learned and remembered were thus set down in Numenor
before the Shadow fell upon it.
NOTES.
1. Very similar remarks are made in Note 2 to the Commentary on
the Athrabeth (p. 337):
Physically Arda was what we should call the Solar System.
Presumably the Eldar could have had as much and as accurate
information concerning this, its structure, origin, and its relation
to the rest of Ea as they could comprehend.
A little further on in this same Note it is said:
The traditions here referred to have come down from the Eldar
of the First Age, through Elves who never were directly ac-
quainted with the Valar, and through Men who received 'lore'
from the Elves, but who had myths and cosmogonic legends, and
astronomical guesses, of their own. There is, however, nothing in
them that seriously conflicts with present human notions of the
Solar System, and its size and position relative to the Universe.
The sentence which I have italicised suggests an assured commit-
ment, at the least, to the re-formation of the old cosmology. - For
references in the Commentary on the Athrabeth to the Numenorean
part in the transmission of legends of the Elder Days see
pp. 342, 344, 360.
2. These are a proposal that Niniel (Nienor) should 'in her looks and
ways' remind Turin of Lalaeth, his sister who died in childhood
(see Unfinished Tales p. 147 note 7), and another, marked with a
query, that Turin should think of the words of Saeros, the Elf of
Doriath, when he finds Niniel naked in the eaves of the Forest
of Brethil (Unfinished Tales pp. 80, 122).
On the back of this slip my father wrote (in a furious scribble in
ball-point pen):
The cosmogonic myths are Numenorean, blending Elven-lore
with human myth and imagination. A note should say that the
Wise of Numenor recorded that the making of stars was not so,
nor of Sun and Moon. For Sun and stars were all older than
Arda. But the placing of Arda amidst stars and under the
[?guard] of the Sun was due to Manwe and Varda before
the assault of Melkor.
I take the words 'the Wise of Numenor recorded that the making
of stars was not so, nor of Sun and Moon' to mean that the
making of the Sun, Moon and stars was not derived from 'Elven-
lore'. It is to be noted that Arda here means 'the Earth', not 'the
Solar System'.
3. I have said (p. 64) that I would be inclined to place AAm* with the
writing of the original manuscript of the Annals rather than to
some later time, but this is no more than a guess.
II.
This is a text of a most problematic nature, a manuscript in ink that
falls into two parts which are plainly very closely associated: a
discussion, with proposals for the 'regeneration' of the mythology;
and an abandoned narrative. Neither has title or heading.
The Making of the Sun and Moon must occur long before the
coming of the Elves; and cannot be made to be after the death of
the Two Trees - if that occurred in any connexion with the
sojourn of the Noldor in Valinor. The time allowed is too short.
Neither could there be woods and flowers &c. on earth, if there
had been no light since the overthrow of the Lamps!(1)
But how can, nonetheless, the Eldar be called the 'Star-folk'?
Since the Eldar are supposed to be wiser and have truer
knowledge of the history and nature of the Earth than Men (or
than Wild Elves), their legends should have a closer relation to
the knowledge now possessed of at least the form of the Solar
System (= Kingdom of Arda);(2) though it need not, of course,
follow any 'scientific' theory of its making or development.
It therefore seems clear that the cosmogonic mythology
should represent Arda as it is, more or less: an island in the void
'amidst the innumerable stars'. The Sun should be coeval with
Earth, though its relative size need not be considered, while
the apparent revolution of the Sun about the Earth will be
accepted.*
The Stars, therefore, in general will be other and remoter
parts of the Great Tale of Ea, which do not concern the Valar of
Arda. Though, even if not explicitly, it will be an underlying
assumption that the Kingdom of Arda is of central importance,
selected amid all the immeasurable vast of Ea as the scene for
the main drama of the conflict of Melkor with Iluvatar, and the
Children of Eru. Melkor is the supreme spirit of Pride and
Revolt, not just the chief Vala of the Earth, who has turned to
evil.(3)
(* [marginal note] It is or would be in any case a 'fact of life' for any
intelligence that chose the Earth for a place of life and labour. [There is
no indication where this is to go, but nowhere else on the page seems
suitable.])
Varda, therefore, as one of the great Valar of Arda, cannot be
said to have 'kindled' the stars, as an original subcreative act -
not at least the stars in general.(4)
The Story, it seems, should follow such a line as this. The
entry of the Valar into Ea at the beginning of Time. The
choosing of the Kingdom of Arda as their chief abiding place
(? by the highest and noblest of the Ainur,(5) to whom Iluvatar
had intended to commit the care of the Eruhini). Manwe and his
companions elude Melkor and begin the ordering of Arda, but
Melkor seeks for them and at last finds Arda,(6) and contests the
kingship with Manwe.
This period will, roughly, correspond to supposed primeval
epochs before Earth became habitable. A time of fire and
cataclysm. Melkor disarrayed the Sun so that at periods it was
too hot, and at others too cold. Whether this was due to the
state of the Sun, or alterations in the orbit of Earth, need not be
made precise: both are possible.
But after a battle Melkor is driven out from Earth itself. (The
First Battle?) He finds he can only come there in great secrecy.
At this time he begins first to turn most to cold and darkness.
His first desire (and weapon) had been fire and heat. It was in
the wielding of flame that Tulkas (? originally Vala of the Sun)
defeated him in the First Battle. Melkor therefore comes mostly
at night and especially to the North in winter. (It was after the
First Battle that Varda set certain stars as ominous signs for the
dwellers in Arda to see.)
The Valar to counteract this make the Moon. Out of
earth-stuff or Sun? This is to be a subsidiary light to mitigate
night * (as Melkor had made it), and also a 'vessel of watch and
ward' to circle the world.(7) But Melkor gathered in the Void
spirits of cold &c. and suddenly assailed it, driving out the Vala
Tilion.(8) The Moon was thereafter long while steerless and
vagrant and called Rana (neuter).(9)
[If Tulkas came from the Sun, then Tulkas was the form this
Vala adopted on Earth, being in origin Auron (masculine). But
the Sun is feminine; and it is better that the Vala should be Aren,
a maiden whom Melkor endeavoured to make his spouse (or
ravished);(10) she went up in a flame of wrath and anguish and
(* [marginal note] But not to drive it away. It was necessary to have
an alternation, 'because in Ea according to the Tale nothing can
endure endlessly without weariness and corruption.')
her spirit was released from Ea, but Melkor was blackened and
burned, and his form was thereafter dark, and he took to dark-
ness. (The Sun itself was Anar neuter or Ur, cf. Rana, Ithil.)]
The Sun remained a Lonely Fire, polluted by Melkor, but
after the death of the Two Trees Tilion returned to the Moon,
which remained therefore an enemy of Melkor and his servants
and creatures of night - and so beloved of Elves later &c.
After the capture of the Moon Melkor begins to be more bold
again. He establishes permanent seats in the North deep under-
ground. From thence proceeds the secret corruption which per-
verts the labours of the Valar (especially of Aule and Yavanna).
The Valar grow weary. At length discovering Melkor and
where he dwells they seek to drive him out again, but Utumno
proves too strong.
Varda has preserved some of the Primeval Light (her original
chief concern in the Great Tale). The Two Trees are made. The
Valar make their resting place and dwellings in Valinor in the
West.
Now one of the objects of the Trees (as later of the Jewels)
was the healing of the hurts of Melkor, but this could easily
have a selfish aspect: the staying of history - not going on with
the Tale. This effect it had on the Valar. They became more and
more enamoured of Valinor, and went there more often and
stayed there longer. Middle-earth was left too little tended,
and too little protected against Melkor.
Towards the end of the Days of Bliss, the Valar find the tables
turned. They are driven out of Middle-earth by Melkor and his
evil spirits and monsters; and can only themselves come there
secretly and briefly (Orome and Yavanna mainly).
This period must be brief. Both sides know that the coming of
the Children of God is imminent. Melkor desires to dominate
them at once with fear and darkness and enslave them. He
darkens the world [added in margin: for 7 years?] cutting off all
vision of the sky so far as he can, and though far south (it is
said) this was not effective. From the far North (where [they
are] dense) to the middle (Endor)(11) great clouds brood. Moon
and stars are invisible. Day is only a dim twilight at full. Only
light [is] in Valinor.
Varda arises in her might and Manwe of the Winds and strive
with the Cloud of Unseeing. But as fast as it is rent Melkor
closes the veil again - at least over Middle-earth. Then came the
Great Wind of Manwe, and the veil was rent. The stars shine
out clear even in the North (Valakirka) and after the long dark
seem terribly bright.
It is in the dark just before that the Elves awake. The first
thing they see in the dark is the stars. But Melkor brings up
glooms out of the East, and the stars fade away west. Hence
they think from the beginning of light and beauty in the West.
The Coming of Orome.
The Third Battle and the captivity of Melkor. The Eldar go to
Valinor. The clouds slowly disperse after the capture of Melkor
though Utumno still belches. It is darkest eastward, furthest
from the breath of Manwe.
The March of the Eldar is through great Rains?
Men awake in an Isle amid the floods and therefore welcome
the Sun which seems to come out of the East. Only when the
world is drier do they leave the Isle and spread abroad.
It is only Men that met Elves and heard the rumours of the
West that go that way. For the Elves said: 'If you delight in the
Sun, you will walk in the path it goes.'
The coming of Men will therefore be much further back.(12)
This will be better; for a bare 400 years is quite inadequate to
produce the variety, and the advancement (e.g. of the Edain) at
the time of Felagund.(13)
Men must awake while Melkor is still in Arda? - because of
their Fall.(14) Therefore in some period during the Great March.
This text ends here. There follows now the associated narrative,
identical in appearance to the foregoing discussion (both elements are
written in the same rather unusual script).
After the Valar, who before were the Ainur of the Great Song,
entered into Ea, those who were the noblest among them and
understood most of the mind of Iluvatar sought amid the
immeasurable regions of the Beginning for that place where they
should establish the Kingdom of Arda in time to come. And
when they had chosen that point and region where it should be,
they began the labours that were needed. Others there were,
countless to our thought though known each and numbered in
the mind of Iluvatar, whose labour lay elsewhere and in other
regions and histories of the Great Tale, amid stars remote and
worlds beyond the reach of the furthest thought. But of these
others we know nothing and cannot know, though the Valar of
Arda, maybe, remember them all.
Chief of the Valar of Arda was he whom the Eldar afterwards
named Manwe, the Blessed: the Elder King, since he was the
first of all kings in [Arda >] Ea. Brother to him was Melkor, the
potent, and he had, as has been told, fallen into pride and desire
of his own dominion. Therefore the Valar avoided him, and
began the building and ordering of Arda without him. For
which reason it is said that whereas there is now great evil in
Arda and many things therein are at discord, so that the good of
one seemeth to be the hurt of another, nonetheless the founda-
tions of this world are good, and it turns by nature to good,
healing itself from within by the power that was set there in its
making; and evil in Arda would fail and pass away if it were not
renewed from without: that is: that comes from wills and being
[sic] that are other than Arda itself.
And as is known well, the prime among these is Melkor.
Measureless as were the regions of Ea, yet in the Beginning,
where he could have been Master of all that was done - for
there were many of the Ainur of the Song willing to follow him
and serve him, if he called - still he was not content. And he
sought ever for Arda and Manwe, his brother, begrudging him
the kingship, small though it might seem to his desire and his
potency; for he knew that to that kingship Iluvatar designed to
give the highest royalty in Ea, and under the rule of that throne
to bring forth the Children of God. And in his thought which
deceived him, for the liar shall lie unto himself, he believed that
over the Children he might hold absolute sway and be unto
them sole lord and master, as he could not be to spirits of his
own kind, however subservient to himself. For they knew that
the One Is, and must assent to Melkor's rebellion of their own
choice; whereas he purposed to withhold from the Children this
knowledge and be for ever a shadow between them and the
light.
As a shadow Melkor did not then conceive himself. For in his
beginning he loved and desired light, and the form that he took
was exceedingly bright; and he said in his heart: 'On such
brightness as I am the Children shall hardly endure to look;
therefore to know of aught else or beyond or even to strain their
small minds to conceive of it would not be for their good.' But
the lesser brightness that stands before the greater becomes a
darkness. And Melkor was jealous, therefore, of all other
brightnesses, and wished to take all light unto himself. There-
fore Iluvatar, at the entering in of the Valar into Ea, added a
theme to the Great Song which was not in it at the first Singing,
and he called one of the Ainur to him. Now this was that Spirit
which afterwards became Varda (and taking female form
became the spouse of Manwe). To Varda Iluvatar said: 'I will
give unto thee a parting gift. Thou shalt take into Ea a light that
is holy, coming new from Me, unsullied by the thought and lust
of Melkor, and with thee it shall enter into Ea, and be in Ea, but
not of Ea.' Wherefore Varda is the most holy and revered of all
the Valar, and those that name the light of Varda name the love
of Ea that Eru has, and they are afraid, less only to name the
One. Nonetheless this gift of Iluvatar to the Valar has its own
peril, as have all his free gifts: which is in the end no more than
to say that they play a part in the Great Tale so that it may be
complete; for without peril they would be without power, and
the giving would be void.
When therefore at last Melkor discovered the abiding place
of Manwe and his friends he went thither in great haste, as a
blazing fire. And finding that already great labours had been
achieved without his counsel, he was angered, and desired to
undo what was done or to alter it according to his own mind.
But this Manwe would not suffer, and there was war
therefore in Arda. But as is elsewhere written Melkor was at
that time defeated with the aid of Tulkas (who was not among
those who began the building of Ea) and driven out again into
the Void that lay about Arda. This is named the First Battle; and
though Manwe had the victory, great hurt was done to the work
of the Valar; and the worst of the deeds of the wrath of Melkor
was seen in the Sun. Now the Sun was designed to be the heart
of Arda, and the Valar purposed that it should give light to all
that Realm, unceasingly and without wearying or diminution,
and that from its light the world should receive health and life
and growth. Therefore Varda set there the most ardent and
beautiful of all those spirits that had entered with her into Ea,
and she was named Ar(i),(15) and Varda gave to her keeping a
portion of the gift of Iluvatar so that the Sun should endure and
be blessed and give blessing. The Sun, the loremasters tell us,
was in that beginning named As (which is as near as it can be
interpreted Warmth, to which are joined Light and Solace), and
that the spirit therefore was called Azie (or later Arie).
But Melkor, as hath been told, lusted after all light, desiring it
jealously for his own. Moreover he soon perceived that in As
there was a light that had been concealed from him, and which
had a power of which he had not thought. Therefore, afire at
once with desire and anger, he went to As [written above: Asa],
and he spoke to Arie, saying: 'I have chosen thee, and thou shalt
be my spouse, even as Varda is to Manwe, and together we shall
wield all splendour and mastery. Then the kingship of Arda
shall be mine in deed as in right, and thou shalt be the partner of
my glory.'
But Arie rejected Melkor and rebuked him, saying: 'Speak not
of right, which thou hast long forgotten. Neither for thee nor by
thee alone was Ea made; and thou shalt not be King of Arda.
Beware therefore; for there is in the heart of As a light in which
thou hast no part, and a fire which will not serve thee. Put not
out thy hand to it. For though thy potency may destroy it, it will
burn thee and thy brightness will be made dark.'
Melkor did not heed her warning, but cried in his wrath: 'The
gift which is withheld I take!' and he ravished Arie, desiring
both to abase her and to take into himself her powers. Then the
spirit of Arie went up like a flame of anguish and wrath, and
departed for ever from Arda,* and the Sun was bereft of the
Light of Varda, and was stained by the assault of Melkor. And
being for a long while without rule it flamed with excessive heat
or grew too cool, so that grievous hurt was done to Arda and
the fashioning of the world was marred and delayed, until with
long toil the Valar made a new order.+ But even as Arie
foretold, Melkor was burned and his brightness darkened, and
he gave no more light, but light pained him exceedingly and he
hated it.
Nonetheless Melkor would not leave Arda in peace; and
above all he begrudged to the Valar their dwelling on Earth, and
desired to injure their labours there, or bring them to naught, if
he could. Therefore he returned to Earth, but for fear of the
might of the Valar and of Tulkas more than all he came now in
secret. And in his hatred of the Sun he came to the North at
night in winter. At first he would depart when the long day of
summer came; but after a time, becoming bolder again, and
desiring a dwelling place of his own, he began the delving
(* [marginal note] Indeed some say that it was released from Ea.)
(+ [marginal note] Also some of the Wise have said that the ordering
of Arda, as to the placing and courses of its parts, was disarrayed by
Melkor, so that the Earth was at times drawn too near to the Sun, and
at others went too far off.)
underground of his great fortress in the far North, which was
afterwards named Utumno (or Udun).
The Valar therefore, when they became aware by the signs of
evil that were seen upon Earth that Melkor had stolen back,
sought in vain for him, though Tulcas and Orome went wide
over Middle-earth even to the uttermost East. When they
perceived that Melkor would now turn darkness and night to
his purposes, as he had aforetime sought to wield flame, they
were grieved; for it was a part of their design that there should
be change and alteration upon Earth, and neither day perpetual
nor night without end.* For by Night the Children of Arda
should know Day, and perceive and love Light; and yet Night
should also in its kind be good and blessed, being a time of
repose, and of inward thought; and a vision also of things high
and fair that are beyond Arda, but are veiled by the splendour of
Anar. But Melkor would make it a time of peril unseen, of fear
without form, an uneasy vigil; or a haunted dream, leading
through despair to the shadow of Death.
Therefore Manwe took counsel with Varda, and they called
Aule to their aid. And they resolved to alter the fashion of Arda
and of Earth, and in their thought they devised Ithil, the Moon.
In what way and with what labours they wrought in deed this
great device of their thought, who shall say: for which of the
Children hath seen the Valar in the uprising of their strength or
listened to their counsels in the flower of their youth? Who hath
observed their labour as they laboured, who hath seen the
newness of the new?
Some say that it was out of Earth (16) itself that Ithil was made,
and thus Ambar (17) was diminished; others say that the Moon
was made of like things to the Earth and of that which is Ea
itself as it was made in the Tale.(18)
Now when the Moon was full-wrought it was set above
Ambar, and directed to go ever round and about, bringing a
light to dark places from which the Sun had departed. But it was
a lesser light, so that moonlight was not the same as sunlight,
and there was still change of light upon the Earth; moreover
(* [footnote to the text] For it is indeed of the nature of Ea and the
Great History that naught may stay unchanged in time, and things
which do so, or appear to do so, or endeavour to remain so, become a
weariness, and are loved no longer (or are at best unheeded).)
there was still also night under the stars, for the Moon and the
Sun were at certain times and seasons both absent.
This at least is what came after to be by that doom spoken by
Iluvatar..... the evil of Melkor should in its own despite bring
forth things more fair than the devising of his ..... For some
have held that the Moon was at first aflame, but was later made
[?strong] and life .....: later but while Arda was unfashioned
and still in the turmoils of Melkor.
So much is known to the Wise, that Tilion - [sic] and that
Melkor was filled with new wrath at the rising of the Moon.
Therefore for a while he left Ambar again and went out into the
Outer Night, and gathered to him some of those spirits who
would answer his call.
A page of rough and disconnected notes obviously preceded this
text, but must belong to much the same time: ideas found in the
discussion and synopsis preceding the narrative are found also here,
such as the 'great darkness of shadow' created by Melkor that blotted
out the Sun. In these notes my father was still asking himself whether
he should 'keep the old mythological story of the making of the Sun
and Moon, or alter the background to a "round earth" version', and
observing that in the latter case the Moon would be a work of
Melkor's to provide 'a safe retreat' - thus returning to the idea of the
origin of the Moon found years before in text C* of the Ainulindale'
(p. 41, $31). Doubt and lack of certain direction are very strongly
conveyed, as he wrestled with the intractable problems posed by the
presence of the Sun in the sky under which the Elves awoke, which
was lit only by the stars.(19)
There are features in the present text that clearly associate it with
the Commentary on the Athrabeth (see notes 2 and 3 below), among
them the use of the name Arda to mean the Solar System; but while the
Earth itself is in the Commentary named Imbar it has here the older
name Ambar (see note 17). There can be no doubt, I think, that the
present text was the earlier of the two. On the other hand, no more
finished or complete presentation of the new conceptions at large, the
'new mythology', is found; and it seems at any rate arguable that while
committed in mind to the abandonment of the old myth of the origin
of the Sun and Moon my father left in abeyance the formulation and
expression of the new. It may be, though I have no evidence on the
question one way or the other, that he came to perceive from such
experimental writing as this text that the old structure was too
comprehensive, too interlocked in all its parts, indeed its roots too
deep, to withstand such a devastating surgery.
NOTES.
1. In AAm $15 (p. 52) 'there was great growth of trees and herbs,
and beasts and birds came forth' in the light of the Lamps: that
was the Spring of Arda. But after the destruction of the Lamps
Yavanna 'set a sleep upon many fair things that had arisen in
the Spring, both tree and herb and beast and bird, so that they
should not age but should wait for a time of awakening that
yet should be' ($30, p. 70).
2. On the astronomical knowledge to be presumed among the
High-elves cf. Note 2 to the Commentary on the Athrabeth
(p. 337) - where as here Arda is equated with the Solar System -
and Text I (p. 370).
3. The thought of this paragraph is closely paralleled in Note 2 to
the Commentary on the Athrabeth (p. 337), and the final
sentence is very similar to what is said in the Commentary itself,
p. 334 ('Melkor was not just a local Evil on Earth...').
4. In AAm $24 (p. 54) it is told that after the Fall of the Lamps
'Middle-earth lay in a twilight beneath the stars that Varda had
wrought in the ages forgotten of her labours in Ea', and in $34
(p. 71) Varda looked out from Taniquetil 'and beheld the darkness
of the Earth beneath the innumerable stars, faint and far', before
she began the making of new and brighter stars; so also in the
revised Quenta Silmarillion (p. 159, $19): 'Then Varda
made new stars and brighter against the coming of the First-born.
Wherefore she whose name out of the deeps of time and the
labours of Ea was Tintalle, the Kindler, was called after by the
Elves Elentari, the Queen of the Stars.' But if she can still perhaps
be called Elentari, she can no longer be called Tintalle (see
however p. 388 and note 3).
In a late emendation to the final text D of the Ainulindale
(p. 34, $36) the words concerning Varda 'she it was who wrought
the Stars' were changed to 'she it was who wrought the Great
Stars'; and it seems possible that this was done in the light of the
ideas presented here.
5. Cf. Note 2 to the Commentary on the Athrabeth (p. 337), with
note 13 to that passage.
6. This is of course altogether different from the form of the legend
in the Ainulindale' (p. 14, $23): 'But Melkor, too, was there from
the first, and he meddled in all that was done'; while in the text
C* (p. 40) Melkor entered Arda before the other Ainur.
7. The legend in Ainulindale' C* that Melkor himself made the
Moon so that he 'could observe thence all that happened below'
(p. 41, $31) had been abandoned (but see p. 383).
8. In AAm (p. 131, $172) and in QS ($75) Tilion was no Vala, but
'a young hunter of the company of Orome'. In AAm $179
appears the story that Morgoth assailed Tilion, 'sending spirits of
shadow against him', but unavailingly.
9. On names of the Sun and Moon see QS $75 and commentary
(V.241, 243) and the later revision of the passage (p. 198); also
AAm $171 and commentary (pp. 130, 136).
10. In AAm (p. 133, $179) it was told that 'Arien Morgoth feared
with a great fear, and dared not to come nigh her'.
11. On the name Endor see AAm $38 (pp. 72, 76).
12. See p. 327 note 16.
13. 'at the time of Felagund': i.e. at the time when Finrod Felagund
encountered Men, first of the High-elves to do so (p. 307).
14. 'Men must awake while Melkor is still in Arda?': 'Arda' must be
an error for 'Middle-earth' (i.e. before his captivity in Aman).
15. An s is pencilled over the r of Ar(i).
16. Above Earth my father wrote Ambar, then struck it out, and
wrote 'Mar = House'. See the next note.
17. In Note 2 to the Commentary on the Athrabeth (p. 337, and see
note 12 to that passage) appears Imbar, translated 'the Habita-
tion', = Earth, 'the principal part of Arda' (= the Solar System).
18. From this point the manuscript becomes very rough, in places
illegible, and soon peters out.
19. In other scribbled notes (written at the same time as text II and
constituting a part of that manuscript) my father wrote that Varda
gave the holy light received in gift from Iluvatar (see p. 380) not
only to the Sun and to the Two Trees but also to 'the significant
Star'. The meaning of this is nowhere explained. Beside it he
wrote Signifer, and many experimental Elvish names, as Taengyl,
Tengyl, Tannacolli or Tankol, Tainacolli; also a verbal root tana
'show, indicate'; tanna 'sign'; and kolla 'borne, worn, especially a
vestment or cloak', with the note 'Sindikoll-o is masculinized'.
III.
This very brief and hasty statement was found in a small collection of
such notes folded in a newspaper of April 1959. It was written on a
slip of paper torn from a bill from Merton College dated in June 1955;
a similar bill of October 1955 was used for a passage of drafting for
the Athrabeth (p. 352). I have noticed (p. 304) that the use of such
documents of the year 1955 might suggest that the Athrabeth was not
the work of a single concentrated period, although if my father had
prepared a supply of such slips for brief notes or passages of drafting
and other purposes the date would be misleading.
What happened in Valinor after the Death of the Trees? Aman
was 'unveiled' - it had been covered with a dome (made by
Varda) of mist or cloud down through which no sight would
pierce nor light. This dome was lit by stars - in imitation of the
great Firmament of Ea. This now rendered Valinor dark except
for starlight [i.e. after the death of the Trees]. It was removed
and Aman was lit by the Sun - its blessing was thus removed.
(Melkor's defilement of the Sun must thus precede the Two
Trees which had light of Sun and Stars before Melkor [?tainted]
it - or the Trees [?could ?would] be lit by light before the
[?Turbulence] of Melkor.)
I do not feel altogether certain of the meaning of the extremely
elliptical concluding sentence in brackets, but it should perhaps be
interpreted thus - as the statement of a problem arising from what has
been said. The Dome of Varda must have been contrived after the
ravishing of Arie by Melkor, in order to keep out the Sun's polluted
light,(1) and Aman was lit beneath the Dome by the Two Trees. But on
the other hand, it is an essential idea that the light of the Trees was
derived from the Sun before it was 'tainted'. A resolution of this
conflict may be found (reading 'could', not 'would', in the last phrase)
in the idea that the light of the Trees was an unsullied light preserved
by Varda from a time before the assaults of Melkor.
In the initial discussion in text II it is made clear that the Sun had
been defiled before the Two Trees came into being: 'Now one of the
objects of the Trees... was the healing of the hurts of Melkor' (p. 377);
but it is also said that 'Varda has preserved some of the Primeval
Light... The Two Trees are made.' This appears to be the solution to
which my father came in the present text, thus suggesting that it
preceded text II. On the other hand, there is no suggestion of the
Dome of Varda in text II, and that text gives the impression that my
father was beginning a new story, working it out as he went. It is
probably vain to try to establish a clear sequence of composition from
these papers, since he might return to the same problem and find what
appears to be the same resolution at different times.
It is a notable fact that the Dome of Varda appears in my father's
final work on the narrative text of the Quenta Silmarillion Chapter 6
(p. 286, $57). Where in AAm (p. 98, $108) it was told that Melkor,
with Ungoliante beside him, looked out from the summit of Mount
Hyarantar and 'saw afar ... the silver domes of Valmar gleaming in
the mingling of the lights of Telperion and Laurelin', in the Quenta
Silmarillion Ungoliante (now, in the changed story, lying on the
summit alone) 'saw the glimmer of the stars in the dome of Varda and
the radiance of Valmar far away.' Thus when later in the final
rewriting ('The Rape of the Silmarils', p. 293, $1) it is told that above
the Valar sitting in the Ring of Doom 'the stars of Varda now
glimmered overhead', it must be the stars of the Dome that were
glimmering.(2)
NOTES.
1. But in text IV (p. 388) it is said that the Dome of Varda was made
'to keep out any spirits or spies of Melkor'.
2. In the corresponding passage in the Annals of Aman (p. 106, $117)
it is said: 'the gods sat in shadow, for it was night. But now night
only as it may be in some land of the world, when the stars peer
fitfully through the wrack of great clouds, and cold fogs drift in
from a sullen shore of the sea.' In the published Silmarillion the
final text ('the stars of Varda now glimmered overhead') was used;
this does not indeed introduce any difficulty within the narrative,
but I did not at that time perceive the significance of the words.
IV
There is a further statement about the Dome of Varda in a manuscript
to which I have several times referred (VI.466; VIII.20; IX.73), an
analysis (in intention) of all fragments of other languages found in The
Lord of the Rings. The passage that I quote here comes from a long
note on the song to Elbereth at the end of the chapter 'Many
Meetings'. It may be mentioned incidentally that my father noted on
the word menel: 'the heavens, the apparent dome of the sky. (Probably
a Quenya word introduced into Sindarin. It was opposed to kemen
"the Earth" as an apparent flat floor under menel. But these were
"pictorial" words, as the lore of the Eldar and the Numenoreans knew
much astronomy.)'
The passage concerning the Dome arises from the statement that
Elbereth has el- 'star' prefixed (with the note 'But since b is not
mutated the name is probably to be referred to *elen-barathi >
elmbereth').
The mythological association of Varda with the stars is of
twofold origin. In the 'demiurgic period', before the establish-
ment of Arda 'the Realm', while the Valar in general (including
an unnamed host of others who never came to Arda)(1) were
labouring in the general construction of Ea (the World or
Universe), Varda was in Eldarin and Numenorean legend said
to have designed and set in their places most of the principal
stars; but being (by destiny and desire) the future Queen of
Arda, in which her ultimate function lay, especially as the lover
and protectress of the Quendi, she was concerned not only with
the great Stars in themselves, but also in their relations to Arda,
and their appearance therefrom (and their effect upon the
Children to come). Such forms and major patterns, therefore, as
we call (for instance) the Plough, or Orion, were said to be her
designs. Thus the Valacirca or 'Sickle of the Gods', which was
one of the Eldarin names for the Plough, was, it was said,
intended later to be a sign of menace and threat of vengeance
over the North in which Melkor took up his abode (Varda was
the most foresighted of all the Valar, possessing the clearest
memory of the Music and Vision in which she had played only a
small part as actor or player, but had listened most attentively).(2)
Later, when the Valar took refuge from Melkor, and the
imminent ruin of Arda, and built and fortified Valinor in Aman,
it was Varda who made the great dome above Valinor, to keep
out any spirits or spies of Melkor. It was made as a simulacrum
of the true firmament (Tar-menel), and the patterns were therein
repeated, but with apparent stars (or 'sparks': tinwi) of greater
relative size to the total visible area. So that the lesser firmament
of Valinor (Nur-menel) was very brilliant.
From this work (chiefly: but also her original demiurgic
labours were included) she was called 'Star-kindler'. Note that
Velen properly referred to the real stars of Ea (but could also
naturally be transferred to their imagines). The words tinwe,
nille' (Vtin 'spark', Vngil 'silver glint') and Sindarin tim, gil
referred properly to the Valinorian imagines. Hence Quenya
Tintalle from tinta cause to sparkle, but also Elentari Queen
of Stars'; Sindarin Elbereth, but also Gilthoniel.(3)
This note on Elbereth ends with a slightly jumbled and obscure
statement to the effect that Gilthoniel is derived from the stems Vngil
and Vthan / than 'kindle, set light to'; iel a feminine suffix correspond-
ing to male -we.
These remarks on Varda seem to raise further questions. In text II
(pp. 375 - 6) my father declared that 'the cosmogonic mythology
should represent Arda as it is, more or less: an island in the void
"amidst the innumerable stars"'; that 'the Stars, therefore, in general
will be other and remoter parts of the Great Tale of Ea, which do not
concern the Valar of Arda'; and that 'Varda, therefore, as one of the
great Valar of Arda, cannot be said to have "kindled" the stars, as an
original subcreative act - not at least the stars in general.' I have taken
this to mean (p. 384 note 4) that the 'star-making' of Varda was to be
confined to (at most) the making of the 'Great Stars' before the
Awakening of the Elves. In the present text, on the other hand,
appears the remarkable conception that the 'demiurgic' work of Varda
was the making and disposition of certain 'principal' stars, which
j
should in ages to come, after the establishment of the Earth, be visible
in its skies as figures significant of its history - the 'dramatic centre'
of Ea.
While I think it certain that this text comes from the late 1950s,
there seems no way in which to date it more precisely either externally
or in relation to other writings.
NOTES.
1. Cf. text II (p. 378): 'Others there were, countless to our
thought..., whose labour lay elsewhere and in other regions and
histories of the Great Tale, amid stars remote and worlds beyond
the reach of the furthest thought.'
2. It is a curious point that what is said here of Varda's part in the
Music of the Ainur is largely repeated from what is told of Nienna
in the 'lost' typescript of the beginning of the Annals of Aman
(AAm*, p. 68, $26). There it is told of her that she 'took little part'
in the Music, but 'listened intent to all that she heard. Therefore
she was rich in memory, and farsighted, perceiving how the themes
should unfold in the Tale of Arda.'
3. It is interesting to compare what is said here about the names of
Varda with what my father said on the subject in a note dated
3 February 1938 (V.200): 'Tintalle' Kindler can stand - but tinwe'
in Quenya only = spark (tinta- to kindle). Therefore Tinwerina >
Elerina, Tinwerontar > Elentari'.
V.
This brief comment, entitled 'Sun The Trees Silmarils', is found on
a single sheet, together with other more substantial writings similar in
appearance, preserved in a folded newspaper of November 1958.
The making of the Sun after the Death of the Trees is not only
impossible 'mythology' now - especially since the Valar must be
supposed to know the truth about the structure of Ea (and not
make mythical guesses like Men) and to have communicated
this to the Eldar (and so to Numenoreans!) - it is also im-
possible chronologically in the Narrative.
The Sun existed as part of the Kingdom of Arda. In so far as
there was darkness (and diminishment of growth in Arda
consequently) when the Valar removed to Aman it was due to
obscurations devised by Melkor: clouds and smokes (a volcanic
era!).
The Sun was the immediate source of the light of Arda. The
Blessedness of the Trees (as compared with other growing
things later) was that they were kindled and illumined with the
light of the Sun and Moon before these were tainted. The attack
of Melkor on the Sun (and Moon) must therefore be subsequent
to the establishment of Valinor, and be Melkor's effort to
produce darkness.
Since the Silmarils were kindled from the Trees after the
Death of the Trees, this 'light of the Unmarred Sun' remained
only in them.
In text III, my father's note on the removal of the Dome of Varda
after the death of the Trees, he was confronted by the problem (if my
analysis of his meaning is correct, p. 386) that 'Melkor's defilement of
the Sun must precede the Two Trees', whereas the light of the Trees
was derived from the unsullied light of the Sun and Moon. Here he
concludes that 'the attack of Melkor on the Sun (and Moon) must be
subsequent to the establishment of Valinor'.
The word after in the concluding sentence is no more than a slip in
extremely rapid writing.
:i
VI.
This text, entitled Melkor with Morgoth written beneath, is from the
same collection as is text III (found in a newspaper dated April 1959),
and was written on four slips made from further copies of the same
Merton College documents dated June 1955 as is the draft A of the
Athrabeth (pp. 350 - 2). The slip on which text III is written carries
also preliminary drafting for the present essay on Melkor.
It is notable that text VI begins with a reference to 'Finrod and
Andreth', which was therefore in existence, at least in some form.
Melkor Morgoth.
Melkor must be made far more powerful in original nature (cf.
'Finrod and Andreth'). The greatest power under Eru (sc. the
greatest created power).(1) (He was to make I devise I begin;
Manwe (a little less great) was to improve, carry out, complete.)
Later, he must not be able to be controlled or 'chained' by all
the Valar combined. Note that in the early age of Arda he was
alone able to drive the Valar out of Middle-earth into retreat.
The war against Utumno was only undertaken by the Valar
with reluctance, and without hope of real victory, but rather as
a covering action or diversion, to enable them to get the Quendi
out of his sphere of influence. But Melkor had already pro-
gressed some way towards becoming 'the Morgoth, a tyrant
(or central tyranny and will), + his agents'.(2) Only the total
contained the old power of the complete Melkor; so that if 'the
Morgoth' could be reached or temporarily separated from his
agents he was much more nearly controllable and on a power-
level with the Valar. The Valar find that they can deal with his
agents (sc. armies, Balrogs, etc.) piecemeal. So that they come at
last to Utumno itself and find that 'the Morgoth' has no longer
for the moment sufficient 'force' (in any sense) to shield himself
from direct personal contact. Manwe at last faces Melkor again,
as he has not done since he entered Arda. Both are amazed:
Manwe to perceive the decrease in Melkor as a person; Melkor
to perceive this also from his own point of view: he has now less
personal force than Manwe, and can no longer daunt him with
his gaze.
Either Manwe must tell him so or he must himself suddenly
realize (or both) that this has happened: he is 'dispersed'. But
the lust to have creatures under him, dominated, has become
habitual and necessary to Melkor, so that even if the process
was reversible (possibly was by absolute and unfeigned self-
abasement and repentance only) he cannot bring himself to do
it.* As with all other characters there must be a trembling
moment when it is in the balance: he nearly repents - and does
not, and becomes much wickeder, and more foolish.
Possibly (and he thinks it possible) he could now at that
moment be humiliated against his own will and 'chained' - if
and before his dispersed forces reassemble. So - as soon as he
has mentally rejected repentance - he (just like Sauron after-
wards on this model) makes a mockery of self-abasement and
repentance. From which actually he gets a kind of perverted
pleasure as in desecrating something holy - [for the mere
contemplating of the possibility of genuine repentance, if that
did not come specially then as a direct grace from Eru, was at
least one last flicker of his true primeval nature.](3) He feigns
remorse and repentance. He actually kneels before Manwe and
surrenders - in the first instance to avoid being chained by the
Chain Angainor, which once upon him he fears would not ever
be able to be shaken off. But also suddenly he has the idea of
(* [footnote to the text] One of the reasons for his self-weakening
is that he has given to his 'creatures', Orcs, Balrogs, etc. power of
recuperation and multiplication. So that they will gather again
without further specific orders. Part of his native creative power has
gone out into making an independent evil growth out of his control.)
penetrating the vaunted fastness of Valinor, and ruining it. So
he offers to become 'the least of the Valar' and servant of them
each and all, to help (in advice and skill) in repairing all the evils
and hurts he has done. It is this offer which seduces or deludes
Manwe - Manwe must be shown to have his own inherent fault
(though not sin):* he has become engrossed (partly out of sheer
fear of Melkor, partly out of desire to control him) in amend-
ment, healing, re-ordering - even 'keeping the status quo' - to
the loss of all creative power and even to weakness in dealing
with difficult and perilous situations. Against the advice of some
of the Valar (such as Tulkas) he grants Melkor's prayer.
Melkor is taken back to Valinor going last (save for Tulkas +
who follows bearing Angainor and clinking it to remind
Melkor).
But at the council Melkor is not given immediate freedom.
The Valar in assembly will not tolerate this. Melkor is remitted
to Mandos (to stay there in 'reclusion' and meditate, and
complete his repentance - and also his plans for redress).(4)
Then he begins to doubt the wisdom of his own policy, and
would have rejected it all and burst out into flaming rebellion -
but he is now absolutely isolated from his agents and in enemy
territory. He cannot. Therefore he swallows the bitter pill (but
it greatly increases his hate, and he ever afterward accused
Manwe of being faithless).
The rest of the story, with Melkor's release, and permission to
attend the Council sitting at the feet of Manwe (after the pattern
of evil counsellors in later tales, which it could be said derive
from this primeval model?), can then proceed more or less as
already told.
In this short essay it is seen that in his reflections on the nature of
Melkor, the vastness of his primeval power and its 'dispersion', my
(* [footnote to the text] Every finite creature must have some
weakness: that is some inadequacy to deal with some situations. It is
not sinful when not willed, and when the creature does his best (even if
it is not what should be done) as he sees it - with the conscious intent
of serving Eru.)
(+ [footnote to the text] Tulkas represents the good side of 'violence'
in the war against evil. This is an absence of all compromise which will
even face apparent evils (such as war) rather than parley; and does not
(in any kind of pride) think that any one less than Eru can redress this,
or rewrite the tale of Arda.)
father had been led to propose certain important alterations in the
narrative of the legends as told in the Quenta Silmarillion (pp. 161,
186) and in the Annals of Aman (pp. 75, 80, 93). In the narrative as
it stood, and as it remained,(5) there was no suggestion that Melkor
feigned repentance when (no longer able to 'daunt him with his gaze')
he faced Manwe in Utumno - already harbouring 'the idea of
penetrating the vaunted fastness of Valinor, and ruining it'. On the
contrary, 'Tulkas stood forth as the champion of the Valar and
wrestled with him and cast him upon his face, and bound him with the
chain Angainor'(6) (an ancient element, going back to the richly
pictorial and 'primitive' account in the story of 'The Chaining of
Melko' in The Book of Lost Tales, 1.100 - 4). Moreover, in the present
text it was now, defeated at Utumno, that Melkor offered to become
'the least of the Valar', and to aid them in the redress of all the evils that
he had brought to pass, whereas in the narratives he did this when he
came before the Valar after he had endured the ages of his incarcera-
tion in Mandos and sued for pardon. Of Manwe it was said, when
Melkor was allowed to go freely about Valinor, that he believed that
his evil was cured: 'for he himself was free from the evil and could not
comprehend it'. No such flaw or 'inherent fault' in Manwe as is
described in this essay was suggested;(7) although it was told that Ulmo,
and Tulkas, doubted the wisdom of such clemency (and this too is an
element that goes back to The Book of Lost Tales: 'Such was the
doom of Manwe... albeit Tulkas and Palurien thought it merciful to
peril' (I.105)).
NOTES.
1. Cf. Finrod's words in the Athrabeth (p. 322): 'there is no power
conceivable greater than Melkor save Eru only'.
2. The earliest reference to the idea of the 'dispersion' of Melkor's
original power is found in the Annals of Aman $179 (p. 133):
For as he grew in malice, and sent forth from himself the evil
that he conceived in lies and creatures of wickedness, his power
passed into them and was dispersed, and he himself became ever
more earth-bound, unwilling to issue from his dark strongholds.
Cf. also Annals $128 (p. 110). - The expression 'the Morgoth' is
used several times by Finrod in the Athrabeth.
3. The square brackets were put in after the writing of the passage.
4. 'his plans for redress': i.e. redress of the evils he has brought about.
5. The second passage in QS, in which the pardon of Melkor is
recounted (p. 186, $48), was changed in the final rewriting of
Chapter 6: see p. 273, $48. But though the changed text intro-
duced the ideas that any complete reversal of the evils brought
about by Melkor was impossible, and that he was 'in his beginning
the greatest of the Powers', the narrative was not altered in respect
of changes envisaged in this essay (see note 7).
6. Alteration to the old story of the encounter at Utumno might have
entered if QS Chapter 3 (in which this is recounted) had formed a
part of the late rewriting that transformed the old Chapter 6; but
see note 7.
7. In the final rewriting of QS Chapter 6 (p. 273, $48) this remained
the case (note 5); and the original story was also retained that
it was in Valinor after his imprisonment, not at Utumno, that
Melkor made his promises of service and reparation. This might
suggest that the present essay was written after the new work on
QS (almost certainly dating from the end of the 1950s, p. 300),
supporting the idea that the date of the documents on which the
essay was written (1955) is misleading (see p. 385).
VII.
This essay is found in two forms. The earlier ('A') is a fairly brief text
of four pages in manuscript, titled 'Some notes on the "philosophy" of
the Silmarillion'; it is rapidly expressed and does not have a clear
ending. The second ('B') is a greatly expanded version of twelve pages,
also in manuscript, of far more careful expression and beginning in
fine script, but breaking off unfinished, indeed in the middle of a
sentence. This is titled 'Notes on motives in the Silmarillion'.
The relation between the two forms is such that for most of its
length there is no need to give any of the text of A, for all of its content
is found embedded in B. From the point (p. 401) where the Valar are
condemned for the raising of the Pelori, however, the texts diverge. In
B my father introduced a long palliation of the conduct of the Valar,
and the essay breaks off before the matter of the concluding section of
A was reached (see note 6); this is therefore given at the end of B.
The text of B was subsequently divided and lettered as three distinct
sections, here numbered (i), (ii), and (iii).
Notes on motives in the Silmarillion.
(i)
Sauron was 'greater', effectively, in the Second Age than
Morgoth at the end of the First. Why? Because, though he was
far smaller by natural stature, he had not yet fallen so low.
Eventually he also squandered his power (of being) in the
endeavour to gain control of others. But he was not obliged to
expend so much of himself. To gain domination over Arda,
Morgoth had let most of his being pass into the physical
constituents of the Earth - hence all things that were born on
Earth and lived on and by it, beasts or plants or incarnate
spirits, were liable to be 'stained'. Morgoth at the time of the
War of the Jewels had become permanently 'incarnate': for this
reason he was afraid, and waged the war almost entirely by
means of devices, or of subordinates and dominated creatures.
Sauron, however, inherited the 'corruption' of Arda, and only
spent his (much more limited) power on the Rings; for it was the
creatures of earth, in their minds and wills, that he desired to
dominate. In this way Sauron was also wiser than Melkor-
Morgoth. Sauron was not a beginner of discord; and he
probably knew more of the 'Music' than did Melkor, whose
mind had always been filled with his own plans and devices, and
gave little attention to other things. The time of Melkor's
greatest power, therefore, was in the physical beginnings of the
World; a vast demiurgic lust for power and the achievement of
his own will and designs, on a great scale. And later after things
had become more stable, Melkor was more interested in and
capable of dealing with a volcanic eruption, for example, than
with (say) a tree. It is indeed probable that he was simply
unaware of the minor or more delicate productions of Yavanna:
such as small flowers.*
Thus, as 'Morgoth', when Melkor was confronted by the
existence of other inhabitants of Arda, with other wills and
intelligences, he was enraged by the mere fact of their existence,
and his only notion of dealing with them was by physical force,
or the fear of it. His sole ultimate object was their destruction.
Elves, and still more Men, he despised because of their 'weak-
ness': that is their lack of physical force, or power over 'matter';
but he was also afraid of them. He was aware, at any rate
originally when still capable of rational thought, that he could
not 'annihilate'** them: that is, destroy their being; but their
physical 'life', and incarnate form became increasingly to his
mind the only thing that was worth considering.+ Or he
(* [footnote to the text] If such things were forced upon his attention,
he was angry and hated them, as coming from other minds than his
own.)
(**[bracketed note inserted into the text] Melkor could not, of
course, 'annihilate' anything of matter, he could only ruin or destroy
or corrupt the forms given to matter by other minds in their sub-
creative activities.)
(+ [footnote without indication of reference in the text] For this)
became so far advanced in Lying that he lied even to himself,
and pretended that he could destroy them and rid Arda of them
altogether. Hence his endeavour always to break wills and
subordinate them to or absorb them into his own will and
being, before destroying their bodies. This was sheer nihilism,
and negation its one ultimate object: Morgoth would no doubt,
if he had been victorious, have ultimately destroyed even his
own 'creatures', such as the Orcs, when they had served his sole
purpose in using them: the destruction of Elves and Men.
Melkor's final impotence and despair lay in this: that whereas
the Valar (and in their degree Elves and Men) could still love
'Arda Marred', that is Arda with a Melkor-ingredient, and
could still heal this or that hurt, or produce from its very
marring, from its state as it was, things beautiful and lovely,
Melkor could do nothing with Arda, which was not from his
own mind and was interwoven with the work and thoughts of
others: even left alone he could only have gone raging on till all
was levelled again into a formless chaos. And yet even so he
would have been defeated, because it would still have 'existed',
independent of his own mind, and a world in potential.
Sauron had never reached this stage of nihilistic madness. He
did not object to the existence of the world, so long as he could
do what he liked with it. He still had the relics of positive
purposes, that descended from the good of the nature in which
he began: it had been his virtue (and therefore also the cause
of his fall, and of his relapse) that he loved order and co-
ordination, and disliked all confusion and wasteful friction. (It
was the apparent will and power of Melkor to effect his designs
quickly and masterfully that had first attracted Sauron to him.)
Sauron had, in fact, been very like Saruman, and so still
understood him quickly and could guess what he would be
likely to think and do, even without the aid of palantiri or of
spies; whereas Gandalf eluded and puzzled him. But like all
minds of this cast, Sauron's love (originally) or (later) mere
understanding of other individual intelligences was correspond-
ingly weaker; and though the only real good in, or rational
motive for, all this ordering and planning and organization was
the good of all inhabitants of Arda (even admitting Sauron's
( reason he himself came to fear 'death' - the destruction of his assumed
bodily form - above everything, and sought to avoid any kind of
injury to his own form.)
right to be their supreme lord), his 'plans', the idea coming from
his own isolated mind, became the sole object of his will, and an
end, the End, in itself.*
Morgoth had no 'plan': unless destruction and reduction to
nil of a world in which he had only a share can be called a
'plan'. But this is, of course, a simplification of the situation.
Sauron had not served Morgoth, even in his last stages, without
becoming infected by his lust for destruction, and his hatred of
God (which must end in nihilism). Sauron could not, of course,
be a 'sincere' atheist. Though one of the minor spirits created
before the world, he knew Eru, according to his measure. He
probably deluded himself with the notion that the Valar
(including Melkor) having failed, Eru had simply abandoned
Ea, or at any rate Arda, and would not concern himself with it
any more. It would appear that he interpreted the 'change of the
world' at the Downfall of Numenor, when Aman was removed
from the physical world, in this sense: Valar (and Elves) were
removed from effective control, and Men under God's curse and
wrath. If he thought about the Istari, especially Saruman and
Gandalf, he imagined them as emissaries from the Valar,
seeking to establish their lost power again and 'colonize'
Middle-earth, as a mere effort of defeated imperialists (without
knowledge or sanction of Eru). His cynicism, which (sincerely)
regarded the motives of Manwe as precisely the same as his
own, seemed fully justified in Saruman. Gandalf he did not
understand. But certainly he had already become evil, and
therefore stupid, enough to imagine that his different behaviour
was due simply to weaker intelligence and lack of firm masterful
purpose. He was only a rather cleverer Radagast - cleverer,
because it is more profitable (more productive of power) to
become absorbed in the study of people than of animals.
Sauron was not a 'sincere' atheist, but he preached atheism,
because it weakened resistance to himself (and he had ceased
to fear God's action in Arda). As was seen in the case of
Ar-Pharazon. But there was seen the effect of Melkor upon
Sauron: he spoke of Melkor in Melkor's own terms: as a god, or
even as God. This may have been the residue of a state which
(* [footnote to the text] But his capability of corrupting other minds,
and even engaging their service, was a residue from the fact that his
original desire for 'order' had really envisaged the good estate
(especially physical well-being) of his 'subjects'.)
was in a sense a shadow of good: the ability once in Sauron at
least to admire or admit the superiority of a being other than
himself. Melkor, and still more Sauron himself afterwards, both
profited by this darkened shadow of good and the services of
'worshippers'. But it may be doubted whether even such a
shadow of good was still sincerely operative in Sauron by that
time. His cunning motive is probably best expressed thus. To
wean one of the God-fearing from their allegiance it is best to
propound another unseen object of allegiance and another hope
of benefits; propound to him a Lord who will sanction what he
desires and not forbid it. Sauron, apparently a defeated rival for
world-power, now a mere hostage, can hardly propound him-
self; but as the former servant and disciple of Melkor, the
worship of Melkor will raise him from hostage to high priest.
But though Sauron's whole true motive was the destruction of
the Numenoreans, this was a particular matter of revenge upon
Ar-Pharazon, for humiliation. Sauron (unlike Morgoth) would
have been content for the Numenoreans to exist, as his own
subjects, and indeed he used a great many of them that he
corrupted to his allegiance.
(ii)
No one, not even one of the Valar, can read the mind of other
'equal beings':* that is one cannot 'see' them or comprehend
them fully and directly by simple inspection. One can deduce
much of their thought, from general comparisons leading to
conclusions concerning the nature and tendencies of minds and
thought, and from particular knowledge of individuals, and
special circumstances. But this is no more reading or inspection
of another mind than is deduction concerning the contents of
a closed room, or events taken place out of sight. Neither is
so-called 'thought-transference' a process of mind-reading: this
is but the reception, and interpretation by the receiving mind, of
the impact of a thought, or thought-pattern, emanating from
another mind, which is no more the mind in full or in itself than
is the distant sight of a man running the man himself. Minds can
exhibit or reveal themselves to other minds by the action of their
(* [marginal note] All rational minds I spirits deriving direct from
Eru are 'equal' - in order and status - though not necessarily 'coeval'
or of like original power.)
own wills (though it is doubtful if, even when willing or desiring
this, a mind can actually reveal itself wholly to any other mind).
It is thus a temptation to minds of greater power to govern or
constrain the will of other, and weaker, minds, so as to induce
or force them to reveal themselves. But to force such a
revelation, or to induce it by any lying or deception, even for
supposedly 'good' purposes (including the 'good' of the person
so persuaded or dominated), is absolutely forbidden. To do so is
a crime, and the 'good' in the purposes of those who commit this
crime swiftly becomes corrupted.
Much could thus 'go on behind Manwe's back': indeed the
innermost being of all other minds, great and small, was hidden
from him. And with regard to the Enemy, Melkor, in particular,
he could not penetrate by distant mind-sight his thought and
purposes, since Melkor remained in a fixed and powerful will to
withhold his mind: which physically expressed took shape in
the darkness and shadows that surrounded him. But Manwe
could of course use, and did use, his own great knowledge, his
vast experience of things and of persons, his memory of the
'Music', and his own far sight, and the tidings of his messengers.
He, like Melkor, practically never is seen or heard of outside
or far away from his own halls and permanent residence. Why is
this? For no very profound reason. The Government is always
in Whitehall. King Arthur is usually in Camelot or Caerleon,
and news and adventures come there and arise there. The 'Elder
King' is obviously not going to be finally defeated or destroyed,
at least not before some ultimate 'Ragnarok'(1) - which even for
us is still in the future, so he can have no real 'adventures'. But,
if you keep him at home, the issue of any particular event (since
it cannot then result in a final 'checkmate') can remain in
literary suspense. Even to the final war against Morgoth it is
Fionwe son of Manwe who leads out the power of the Valar.
When we move out Manwe it will be the last battle, and the end
of the World (or of 'Arda Marred') as the Eldar would say.
[Morgoth's staying 'at home' has, as described above, quite a
different reason: his fear of being killed or even hurt (the literary
motive is not present, for since he is pitted against the Elder
King, the issue of any one of his enterprises is always in doubt).]
Melkor 'incarnated' himself (as Morgoth) permanently. He
did this so as to control the hroa,(2) the 'flesh' or physical matter,
of Arda. He attempted to identify himself with it. A vaster, and
more perilous, procedure, though of similar sort to the opera-
tions of Sauron with the Rings. Thus, outside the Blessed
Realm, all 'matter' was likely to have a 'Melkor ingredient',(3)
and those who had bodies, nourished by the hroa of Arda, had
as it were a tendency, small or great, towards Melkor: they were
none of them wholly free of him in their incarnate form, and
their bodies had an effect upon their spirits.
But in this way Morgoth lost (or exchanged, or transmuted)
the greater part of his original 'angelic' powers, of mind and
spirit, while gaining a terrible grip upon the physical world. For
this reason he had to be fought, mainly by physical force, and
enormous material ruin was a probable consequence of any
direct combat with him, victorious or otherwise. This is the
chief explanation of the constant reluctance of the Valar to
come into open battle against Morgoth. Manwe's task and
problem was much more difficult than Gandalf's. Sauron's,
relatively smaller, power was concentrated; Morgoth's vast
power was disseminated. The whole of 'Middle-earth' was
Morgoth's Ring, though temporarily his attention was mainly
upon the North-west. Unless swiftly successful, War against
him might well end in reducing all Middle-earth to chaos,
possibly even all Arda. It is easy to say: 'It was the task and
function of the Elder King to govern Arda and make it possible
for the Children of Eru to live in it unmolested.' But the
dilemma of the Valar was this: Arda could only be liberated by
a physical battle; but a probable result of such a battle was the
irretrievable ruin of Arda. Moreover, the final eradication of
Sauron (as a power directing evil) was achievable by the
destruction of the Ring. No such eradication of Morgoth was
possible, since this required the complete disintegration of the
'matter' of Arda. Sauron's power was not (for example) in gold
as such, but in a particular form or shape made of a particular
portion of total gold. Morgoth's power was disseminated
throughout Gold, if nowhere absolute (for he did not create
Gold) it was nowhere absent. (It was this Morgoth-element in
matter, indeed, which was a prerequisite for such 'magic' and
other evils as Sauron practised with it and upon it.)
It is quite possible, of course, that certain 'elements' or
conditions of matter had attracted Morgoth's special attention
(mainly, unless in the remote past, for reasons of his own plans).
For example, all gold (in Middle-earth) seems to have had a
specially 'evil' trend - but not silver. Water is represented as
being almost entirely free of Morgoth. (This, of course, does not
mean that any particular sea, stream, river, well, or even vessel
of water could not be poisoned or defiled - as all things could.)
(iii)
The Valar 'fade' and become more impotent, precisely in
proportion as the shape and constitution of things becomes
more defined and settled. The longer the Past, the more nearly
defined the Future, and the less room for important change
(untrammelled action, on a physical plane, that is not destruc-
tive in purpose). The Past, once 'achieved', has become part of
the 'Music in being'. Only Eru may or can alter the 'Music'. The
last major effort, of this demiurgic kind, made by the Valar was
the lifting up of the range of the Pelori to a great height. It is
possible to view this as, if not an actually bad action, at least as
a mistaken one. Ulmo disapproved of it.(4) It had one good, and
legitimate, object: the preservation incorrupt of at least a part of
Arda. But it seemed to have a selfish or neglectful (or despairing)
motive also; for the effort to preserve the Elves incorrupt there
had proved a failure if they were to be left free: many had
refused to come to the Blessed Realm, many had revolted and
left it. Whereas, with regard to Men, Manwe and all the Valar
knew quite well that they could not come to Aman at all; and
the longevity (co-extensive with the life of Arda) of Valar and
Eldar was expressly not permitted to Men. Thus the 'Hiding of
Valinor' came near to countering Morgoth's possessiveness by a
rival possessiveness, setting up a private domain of light and
bliss against one of darkness and domination: a palace and a
pleasaunce (5) (well-fenced) against a fortress and a dungeon.(6)
This appearance of selfish faineance in the Valar in the
mythology as told is (though I have not explained it or
commented on it) I think only an 'appearance', and one which
we are apt to accept as the truth, since we are all in some degree
affected by the shadow and lies of their Enemy, the Calum-
niator. It has to be remembered that the 'mythology' is repre-
sented as being two stages removed from a true record: it is
based first upon Elvish records and lore about the Valar and
their own dealings with them; and these have reached us
(fragmentarily) only through relics of Numenorean (human)
traditions, derived from the Eldar, in the earlier parts, though
for later times supplemented by anthropocentric histories and
tales.(7) These, it is true, came down through the 'Faithful' and
their descendants in Middle-earth, but could not altogether
escape the darkening of the picture due to the hostility of the
rebellious Numenoreans to the Valar.
Even so, and on the grounds of the stories as received, it is
possible to view the matter otherwise. The closing of Valinor
against the rebel Noldor (who left it voluntarily and after
warning) was in itself just. But, if we dare to attempt to enter the
mind of the Elder King, assigning motives and finding faults,
there are things to remember before we deliver a judgement.
Manwe was the spirit of greatest wisdom and prudence in Arda.
He is represented as having had the greatest knowledge of the
Music, as a whole, possessed by any one finite mind; and he
alone of all persons or minds in that time is represented as
having the power of direct recourse to and communication with
Eru. He must have grasped with great clarity what even we may
perceive dimly: that it was the essential mode of the process of
'history' in Arda that evil should constantly arise, and that out
of it new good should constantly come. One especial aspect of
this is the strange way in which the evils of the Marrer, or his
inheritors, are turned into weapons against evil. If we consider
the situation after the escape of Morgoth and the reestablish-
ment of his abode in Middle-earth, we shall see that the heroic
Noldor were the best possible weapon with which to keep Mor-
goth at bay, virtually besieged, and at any rate fully occupied,
on the northern fringe of Middle-earth, without provoking him
to a frenzy of nihilistic destruction. And in the meanwhile, Men,
or the best elements in Mankind, shaking off his shadow, came
into contact with a people who had actually seen and experi-
enced the Blessed Realm.
In their association with the warring Eldar Men were raised
to their fullest achievable stature, and by the two marriages the
transference to them, or infusion into Mankind, of the noblest
Elf-strain was accomplished, in readiness for the still distant,
but inevitably approaching, days when the Elves would 'fade'.
The last intervention with physical force by the Valar, ending
in the breaking of Thangorodrim, may then be viewed as not in
fact reluctant or even unduly delayed, but timed with precision.
The intervention came before the annihilation of the Eldar and
the Edain. Morgoth though locally triumphant had neglected
most of Middle-earth during the war; and by it he had in fact
been weakened: in power and prestige (he had lost and failed to
recover one of the Silmarils), and above all in mind. He had
become absorbed in 'kingship', and though a tyrant of ogre-size
and monstrous power, this was a vast fall even from his former
wickedness of hate, and his terrible nihilism. He had fallen to
like being a tyrant-king with conquered slaves, and vast obe-
dient armies.(8)
The war was successful, and ruin was limited to the small (if
beautiful) region of Beleriand. Morgoth was thus actually made
captive in physical form,(9) and in that form taken as a mere
criminal to Aman and delivered to Namo Mandos as judge -
and executioner. He was judged, and eventually taken out of the
Blessed Realm and executed: that is killed like one of the
Incarnates. It was then made plain (though it must have been
understood beforehand by Manwe and Namo) that, though he
had 'disseminated' his power (his evil and possessive and
rebellious will) far and wide into the matter of Arda, he had lost
direct control of this, and all that 'he', as a surviving remnant of
integral being, retained as 'himself' and under control was the
terribly shrunken and reduced spirit that inhabited his self-
imposed (but now beloved) body. When that body was des-
troyed he was weak and utterly 'houseless', and for that time at
a loss and 'unanchored' as it were. We read that he was then
thrust out into the Void.(10) That should mean that he was put
outside Time and Space, outside Ea altogether; but if that were
so this would imply a direct intervention of Eru (with or without
supplication of the Valar). It may however refer inaccurately *
to the extrusion or flight of his spirit from Arda.
In any case, in seeking to absorb or rather to infiltrate
himself throughout 'matter', what was then left of him was no
longer powerful enough to reclothe itself. (It would now remain
fixed in the desire to do so: there was no 'repentance' or
possibility of it: Melkor had abandoned for ever all 'spiritual'
ambitions, and existed almost solely as a desire to possess and
dominate matter, and Arda in particular.) At least it could not
yet reclothe itself. We need not suppose that Manwe was
deluded into supposing that this had been a war to end war, or
(* [footnote to the text] Since the minds of Men (and even of the
Elves) were inclined to confuse the 'Void', as a conception of the state
of Not-being, outside Creation or Ea, with the conception of vast
spaces within Ea, especially those conceived to lie all about the enisled
'Kingdom of Arda' (which we should probably call the Solar System).)
even to end Melkor. Melkor was not Sauron. We speak of him
being 'weakened, shrunken, reduced'; but this is in comparison
with the great Valar. He had been a being of immense potency
and life. The Elves certainly held and taught that fear or 'spirits'
may grow of their own life (independently of the body), even as
they may be hurt and healed, be diminished and renewed.(11) The
dark spirit of Melkor's 'remainder' might be expected, there-
fore, eventually and after long ages to increase again, even (as
some held) to draw back into itself some of its formerly
dissipated power. It would do this (even if Sauron could not)
because of its relative greatness. It did not repent, or turn finally
away from its obsession, but retained still relics of wisdom, so
that it could still seek its object indirectly, and not merely
blindly. It would rest, seek to heal itself, distract itself by other
thoughts and desires and devices - but all simply to recover
enough strength to return to the attack on the Valar, and to its
old obsession. As it grew again it would become, as it were, a
dark shadow, brooding on the confines of Arda, and yearning
towards it.
Nonetheless the breaking of Thangorodrim and the extrusion
of Melkor was the end of 'Morgoth' as such, and for that age
(and many ages after). It was thus, also, in a sense the end of
Manwe s prime function and task as Elder King, until the End.
He had been the Adversary of the Enemy.
It is very reasonable to suppose that Manwe knew that before
long (as he saw 'time') the Dominion of Men must begin, and
the making of history would then be committed to them: for
their struggle with Evil special arrangements had been made!
Manwe knew of Sauron, of course. He had commanded Sauron
to come before him for judgement, but had left room for
repentance and ultimate rehabilitation. Sauron had refused and
had fled into hiding. Sauron, however, was a problem that Men
had to deal with finally: the first of the many concentrations of
Evil into definite power-points that they would have to combat,
as it was also the last of those in 'mythological' personalized
(but non-human) form.
It may be noted that Sauron's first defeat was achieved by the
Numenoreans alone (though Sauron was not in fact overthrown
personally: his 'captivity' was voluntary and a trick). In the
first overthrow and disembodiment of Sauron in Middle-earth
(neglecting the matter of Luthien) (12)
Here the long version B breaks off, at the foot of a page. I give now
the conclusion of version A from the point where the texts diverge (see
p. 394 and note 6), beginning with the sentence corresponding to B
(p. 401) 'The last major effort, of this demiurgic kind, made by the
Valar...'
The last effort of this sort made by the Valar was the raising up
of the Pelori - but this was not a good act: it came near to
countering Morgoth in his own way - apart from the element of
selfishness in its object of preserving Aman as a blissful region to
live in.
The Valar were like architects working with a plan 'passed'
by the Government. They became less and less important
(structurally!) as the plan was more and more nearly achieved.
Even in the First Age we see them after uncounted ages of work
near the end of their time of work - not wisdom or counsel.
(The wiser they became the less power they had to do anything
- save by counsel.)
Similarly the Elves faded, having introduced 'art and
science'.(13) Men will also 'fade', if it proves to be the plan that
things shall still go on, when they have completed their func-
tion. But even the Elves had the notion that this would not be
so: that the end of Men would somehow be bound up with the
end of history, or as they called it 'Arda Marred' (Arda Sahta),
and the achievement of 'Arda Healed' (Arda Envinyanta).(14)
(They do not seem to have been clear or precise - how should
they be! - whether Arda Envinyanta was a permanent state of
achievement, which could therefore only be enjoyed 'outside
Time', as it were: surveying the Tale as an englobed whole; or a
state of unmarred bliss within Time and in a 'place' that was in
some sense a lineal and historical descent of our world or 'Arda
Marred'. They seem often to have meant both. 'Arda Unmarred'
did not actually exist, but remained in thought - Arda without
Melkor, or rather without the effects of his becoming evil; but is
the source from which all ideas of order and perfection are
derived. 'Arda Healed' is thus both the completion of the 'Tale of
Arda' which has taken up all the deeds of Melkor, but must
according to the promise of Iluvatar be seen to be good; and also
a state of redress and bliss beyond the 'circles of the world'.) (15)
Evil is fissiparous. But itself barren. Melkor could not 'beget',
or have any spouse (though he attempted to ravish Arien, this
was to destroy and distain'(16) her, not to beget fiery offspring).
Out of the discords of the Music - sc. not directly out of either
of the themes,(17) Eru's or Melkor's, but of their dissonance with
regard one to another - evil things appeared in Arda, which did
not descend from any direct plan or vision of Melkor: they were
not 'his children'; and therefore, since all evil hates, hated him
too. The progeniture of things was corrupted. Hence Orcs? Part
of the Elf-Man idea gone wrong. Though as for Orcs, the Eldar
believed Morgoth had actually 'bred' them by capturing Men
(and Elves) early and increasing to the utmost any corrupt
tendencies they possessed.
Despite its incomplete state (whether due to the loss of the con-
clusion of the fully developed form of the essay or to its abandonment,
see note 6) this is the most comprehensive account that my father
wrote of how, in his later years, he had come to 'interpret' the nature
of Evil in his mythology; never elsewhere did he write any such
exposition of the nature of Morgoth, of his decline, and of his
corruption of Arda, nor draw out the distinction between Morgoth
and Sauron: 'the whole of Middle-earth was Morgoth's Ring'.
To place this essay in sequential relation to the other 'philosophical'
or 'theological' writings given in this book with any certainty seems
scarcely possible, though Fionwe son of Manwe on p. 399 (for Eonwe
herald of Manwe') may suggest that it stands relatively early among
them (see pp. 151 - 2). It shows a marked likeness in tone to the many
letters of exposition that my father wrote in the later 1950s, and
indeed it seems to me very possible that the correspondence which
followed the publication of The Lord of the Rings played a significant
part in the development of his examination of the 'images and events'
of the mythology.(18)
NOTES.
1. Ragnarok: 'the Doom of the Gods' (Old Norse): see IX.286.
2. hroa: so written here and at the second occurrence below (and in
text A), not as elsewhere always hroa, where it means the body of
an incarnate being. The word used for 'physical matter' in Laws
and Customs was hron, later changed to orma (p. 218 and note
26); in the Commentary on the Athrabeth and in the 'Glossary' of
names the word is erma (pp. 338, 349).
3. On this sentence see p. 271.
4. Overt condemnation, strongly expressed, of the Valar for the
Hiding of Valinor is found in the story of that name in The Book
of Lost Tales (1.208 - 9), but disappears in the later versions. Of
the old story I noted (1.223) that 'in The Silmarillion there is no
vestige of the tumultuous council, no suggestion of a disagree-
ment among the Valar, with Manwe, Varda and Ulmo actively
disapproving the work and holding aloof from it', and I com-
mented:
It is most curious to observe that the action of the Valar here
sprang essentially from indolence mixed with fear. Nowhere
does my father's early conception of the faineant Gods appear
more clearly. He held moreover quite explicitly that their
failure to make war upon Melko then and there was a deep
error, diminishing themselves, and (as it appears) irreparable.
In his later writing the Hiding of Valinor remained indeed, but
only as a great fact of mythological antiquity; there is no
whisper of its condemnation.
The last words refer to the actual Silmarillion narratives. Ulmo's
disapproval now reappears, and is a further evidence of his
isolation in the counsels of the Valar (see p. 253 note 11); cf. his
words to Tuor at Vinyamar (having spoken to him, among other
things, of 'the hiding of the Blessed Realm', though what he said
is not told): Therefore, though in the days of this darkness I seem
to oppose the will of my brethren, the Lords of the West, that is
my part among them, to which I was appointed ere the making of
the World' (Unfinished Tales p. 29).
5. pleasaunce (= pleasance): a 'pleasure-garden'. My father used
this word several times in The Book of Lost Tales (see 1.275,
pleasance), for example of the gardens of Lorien.
6. At this point my father wrote on the manuscript later: 'See
original short form on Fading of Elves (and Men)'. See p. 394.
This seems a clear indication that B was not completed, or that if
it was its conclusion was early lost.
7. Cf. the statement on this subject in the brief text I, p. 370.
8. Since this discussion is introduced in justification of the Hiding of
Valinor, the bearing of the argument seems to be that the history
of Middle-earth in the last centuries of the First Age would not
have been possible of achievement had Valinor remained open to
the return of the Noldor.
9. As, of course, had happened to Melkor long before, after the sack
of Utumno.
10. Cf. the conclusion of QS (V.332, $29): 'But Morgoth himself the
Gods thrust through the Door of Night into the Timeless Void,
beyond the Walls of the World'.
11. The following was added marginally after the page was written:
If they do not sink below a certain level. Since no fea can be
annihilated, reduced to zero or not-existing, it is no[t] clear
what is meant. Thus Sauron was said to have fallen below the
point of ever recovering, though he had previously recovered.
What is probably meant is that a 'wicked' spirit becomes fixed
in a certain desire or ambition, and if it cannot repent then this
desire becomes virtually its whole being. But the desire may be
wholly beyond the weakness it has fallen to, and it will then be
unable to withdraw its attention from the unobtainable desire, j
even to attend to itself. It will then remain for ever in impotent
desire or memory of desire.
12. A reference to the legend of the defeat of Sauron by Luthien and
Huan on the isle of Tol-in-Gaurhoth, where Beren was impris-
oned (The Silmarillion pp. 174 - 5).
13. Cf. Letters no.181 (1956): 'In this mythological world the
Elves and Men are in their incarnate forms kindred, but in the
relation of their "spirits" to the world in time represent different
"experiments", each of which has its own natural trend, and
weakness. The Elves represent, as it were, the artistic, aesthetic, 1
and purely scientific aspects of the Humane nature raised to a
higher level than is actually seen in Men.'
14. In the text FM 2 of 'Finwe and Miriel' (p. 254, footnote) 'Arda
Marred' is Arda Hastaina. Arda Envinyanta, at both occurrences,
was first written Arda Vincarna.
15. With this passage in brackets cf. especially note (iii) at the end of
Laws and Customs (p. 251); also pp. 245, 254 (footnote), 318.
16. distain: an archaic verb meaning 'stain', 'discolour', 'defile'.
17. The Three Themes of Iluvatar in the Music of the Ainur are here
treated as a single theme, in opposition to the discordant 'theme'
of Melkor.
18. In a letter of June 1957 (Letters no.200) he wrote:
I am sorry if this all seems dreary and 'pompose'. But so do
all attempts to 'explain' the images and events of a mythology.
Naturally the stories come first. But it is, I suppose, some test of
the consistency of a mythology as such, if it is capable of some ]
sort of rational or rationalized explanation.
VIII.
In the last sentence of the original short version of text VII (p. 406) my
father wrote that the Eldar believed that Morgoth bred the Orcs
'by capturing Men (and Elves) early' (i.e. in the early days of their
existence). This indicates that his views on this subject had changed
since the Annals of Aman. For the theory of the origin of the Orcs as it
stood, in point of written record in the narratives,(1) at this time see
AAm $42 - 5 (pp. 72-4, and commentary p. 78), and $127
(pp. 109 - 10, and commentary pp. 123 - 4). In the final form in AAm
(p. 74) 'this is held true by the wise of Eressea':
all those of the Quendi that came into the hands of Melkor, ere
Utumno was broken, were put there in prison, and by slow arts of
cruelty and wickedness were corrupted and enslaved. Thus did
Melkor breed the hideous race of the Orkor in envy and mockery of
the Eldar, of whom they were afterwards the bitterest foes. For the
Orkor had life and multiplied after the manner of the Children of
Iluvatar; and naught that had life of its own, nor the semblance
thereof, could ever Melkor make since his rebellion in the Ainulin-
dale before the Beginning: so say the wise.
On the typescript of AAm my father noted against the account of the
origin of the Orcs: 'Alter this. Orcs are not Elvish' (p. 80).
The present text, entitled 'Orcs', is a short essay (very much a record
of 'thinking with the pen') found in the same small collection gathered
in a newspaper of 1959 as texts III and VI. Like them it was written on
Merton College papers of 1955; and like text VI it makes reference to
'Finrod and Andreth' (see pp. 385, 390).
Orcs.
Their nature and origin require more thought. They are not easy
to work into the theory and system.
(1). As the case of Aule and the Dwarves shows, only Eru
could make creatures with independent wills, and with reason-
ing powers. But Orcs seem to have both: they can try to cheat
Morgoth / Sauron, rebel against him, or criticize him.
(2). ? Therefore they must be corruptions of something
pre-existing.
(3). But Men had not yet appeared, when the Orcs already
existed. Aule constructed the Dwarves out of his memory of the
Music; but Eru would not sanction the work of Melkor so as to
allow the independence of the Orcs. (Not unless Orcs were
ultimately remediable, or could be amended and 'saved'?)
It also seems clear (see 'Finrod and Andreth') that though
Melkor could utterly corrupt and ruin individuals, it is not
possible to contemplate his absolute perversion of a whole
people, or group of peoples, and his making that state
heritable.(2) [Added later: This latter must (if a fact) be an act of
Eru.]
In that case Elves, as a source, are very unlikely. And are Orcs
'immortal', in the Elvish sense? Or trolls? It seems clearly
implied in The Lord of the Rings that trolls existed in their own
right, but were 'tinkered' with by Melkor.(3)
(4). What of talking beasts and birds with reasoning and
speech? These have been rather lightly adopted from less
'serious' mythologies, but play a part which cannot now be
excised. They are certainly 'exceptions' and not much used, but
sufficiently to show they are a recognized feature of the world.
All other creatures accept them as natural if not common.
But true 'rational' creatures, 'speaking peoples', are all of
human / 'humanoid' form. Only the Valar and Maiar are
intelligences that can assume forms of Arda at will. Huan and
Sorontar could be Maiar - emissaries of Manwe.(4) But unfortu-
nately in The Lord of the Rings Gwaehir and Landroval are said
to be descendants of Sorontar.(5)
In any case is it likely or possible that even the least of the
Maiar would become Orcs? Yes: both outside Arda and in it,
before the fall of Utumno. Melkor had corrupted many spirits -
some great, as Sauron, or less so, as Balrogs. The least could
have been primitive (and much more powerful and perilous)
Orcs; but by practising when embodied procreation they would
(cf. Melian) [become] more and more earthbound, unable to
return to spirit-state (even demon-form), until released by death
(killing), and they would dwindle in force. When released they
would, of course, like Sauron, be 'damned': i.e. reduced to
impotence, infinitely recessive: still hating but unable more and
more to make it effective physically (or would not a very
dwindled dead Orc-state be a poltergeist?).
But again - would Eru provide fear for such creatures? For
the Eagles etc. perhaps. But not for Orcs.(6)
It does however seem best to view Melkor's corrupting power
as always starting, at least, in the moral or theological level. Any
creature that took him for Lord (and especially those v ho
blasphemously called him Father or Creator) became soon
corrupted in all parts of its being, the fea dragging down the
hroa in its descent into Morgothism: hate and destruction. As
for Elves being 'immortal': they in fact only had enormously
long lives, and were themselves physically 'wearing out', and
suffering a slow progressive weakening of their bodies.
In summary: I think it must be assumed that 'talking' is not
necessarily the sign of the possession of a 'rational soul' or fea.(7)
The Orcs were beasts of humanized shape (to mock Men
and Elves) deliberately perverted I converted into a more close
resemblance to Men. Their 'talking' was really reeling off
'records' set in them by Melkor. Even their rebellious critical
words - he knew about them. Melkor taught them speech and
as they bred they inherited this; and they had just as much
independence as have, say, dogs or horses of their human
masters. This talking was largely echoic (cf. parrots). In The
Lord of the Rings Sauron is said to have devised a language for
them.(8)
The same sort of thing may be said of Huan and the Eagles:
they were taught language by the Valar, and raised to a higher
level - but they still had no fear.
But Finrod probably went too far in his assertion that Melkor
could not wholly corrupt any work of Eru, or that Eru would
(necessarily) interfere to abrogate the corruption, or to end the
being of His own creatures because they had been corrupted
and fallen into evil.(9)
It remains therefore terribly possible there was an Elvish
strain in the Orcs.(10) These may then even have been mated with
beasts (sterile!) - and later Men. Their life-span would be
diminished. And dying they would go to Mandos and be held in
prison till the End.
The text as written ends here, but my father subsequently added the
following passage. The words with which it opens are a reference to
text Vl, Melkor Morgoth (p. 390).
See 'Melkor'. It will there be seen that the wills of Orcs and
Balrogs etc. are part of Melkor's power 'dispersed'. Their spirit
is one of hate. But hate is non-cooperative (except under direct
fear). Hence the rebellions, mutinies, etc. when Morgoth seems
far off. Orcs are beasts and Balrogs corrupted Maiar. Also (n.b.)
Morgoth not Sauron is the source of Orc-wills. Sauron is just
another (if greater) agent. Orcs can rebel against him without
losing their own irremediable allegiance to evil (Morgoth). Aule
wanted love. But of course had no thought of dispersing his
power. Only Eru can give love and independence. If a finite
sub-creator tries to do this he really wants absolute loving
obedience, but it turns into robotic servitude and becomes evil.
NOTES.
1. In a long letter to Peter Hastings of September 1954, which was
not sent (Letters no.153), my father wrote as follows on the
question of whether Orcs 'could have "souls" or "spirits"':
... since in my myth at any rate I do not conceive of the making
of souls or spirits, things of an equal order if not an equal power
to the Valar, as a possible 'delegation', I have represented at
least the Orcs as pre-existing real beings on whom the Dark
Lord has exerted the fullness of his power in remodelling and
corrupting them, not making them.... There might be other
'makings' all the same which were more like puppets filled
(only at a distance) with their maker's mind and will, or
ant-like operating under direction of a queen-centre.
Earlier in this letter he had quoted Frodo's words to Sam in the
chapter 'The Tower of Cirith Ungol': 'The Shadow that bred
them can only mock, it cannot make: not real new things of its
own. I don't think it gave life to the orcs, it only ruined them and
twisted them'; and he went on: 'In the legends of the Elder Days it ş
is suggested that the Diabolus subjugated and corrupted some of
the earliest Elves ...' He also said that the Orcs 'are fundamen-
tally a race of "rational incarnate" creatures'.
2. In the Athrabeth (p. 312) Finrod declared:
But never even in the night have we believed that [Melkor)
could prevail against the Children of Eru. This one he might
cozen, or that one he might corrupt; but to change the doom of
a whole people of the Children, to rob them of their inherit-
ance: if he could do that in Eru's despite, then greater and more
terrible is he by far than we guessed...
3. In The Lord of the Rings Appendix F (I) it is said of Trolls:
In their beginning far back in the twilight of the Elder Days,
these were creatures of dull and lumpish nature and had no
more language than beasts. But Sauron had made use of them,
teaching them what little they could learn, and increasing their
wits with wickedness.
In the long letter of September 1954 cited in note 1 he wrote of
them:
I am not sure about Trolls. I think they are mere 'counterfeits',
and hence (though here I am of course only using elements of
old barbarous mythmaking that had no 'aware' metaphysic)
they return to mere stone images when not in the dark. But
there are other sorts of Trolls beside these rather ridiculous, if
brutal, Stone-trolls, for which other origins are suggested. Of
course... when you make Trolls speak you are giving them a
power, which in our world (probably) connotes the possession
of a 'soul'.
4. See p. 138. - At the bottom of the page bearing the brief text V
(p. 389) my father jotted down the following, entirely unconnected
with the matter of the text:
Living things in Aman. As the Valar would robe themselves
like the Children, many of the Maiar robed themselves like
other lesser living things, as trees, flowers, beasts. (Huan.)
5. 'There came Gwaihir the Windlord, and Landroval his brother,
greatest of all the Eagles of the North, mightiest of the descend-
ants of old Thorondor' ('The Field of Cormallen' in The Return
of the King).
6. At this point there is a note that begins 'Criticism of (1) (2) (3)
above' (i.e. the opening points of this text, p. 409) and then refers
obscurely to the 'last battle and fall of Barad-dur etc.' in The
Lord of the Rings. In view of what follows my father was
presumably thinking of this passage in the chapter 'Mount
Doom':
From all his policies and webs of fear and treachery, from all
his stratagems and wars his mind shook free; and throughout
his realm a tremor ran, his slaves quailed, and his armies halted,
and his captains suddenly steerless, bereft of will, wavered and
despaired. For they were forgotten.
The note continues:
They had little or no will when not actually 'attended to' by the
mind of Sauron. Does their cheating and rebellion pass that
possible to such animals as dogs etc.?
7. Cf. the end of the passage cited from the letter of 1954 in note 3.
8. Appendix F (I): 'It is said that the Black Speech was devised by
Sauron in the Dark Years'.
9. See the citation from the Athrabeth in note 2. Finrod did not in
fact assert the latter part of the opinion here attributed to him.
10. The assertion that 'it remains therefore terribly possible there was
an Elvish strain in the Orcs' seems merely to contradict what has
been said about their being no more than 'talking beasts' without
advancing any new considerations. In the passage added at the
end of the text the statement that 'Orcs are beasts' is repeated.
IX.
This is another and quite separate note on the origin of the Orcs,
written quickly in pencil, and without any indication of date.
This suggests - though it is not explicit - that the 'Orcs' were of
Elvish origin. Their origin is more clearly dealt with elsewhere.
One point only is certain: Melkor could not 'create' living
'creatures' of independent wills.
He (and all the 'spirits' of the 'First-created', according to
their measure) could assume bodily shapes; and he (and they)
could dominate the minds of other creatures, including Elves
and Men, by force, fear, or deceits, or sheer magnificence.
The Elves from their earliest times invented and used a word
or words with a base (o)rok to denote anything that caused fear
and/or horror. It would originally have been applied to 'phan-
toms' (spirits assuming visible forms) as well as to any independ-
ently existing creatures. Its application (in all Elvish tongues)
specifically to the creatures called Orks - so I shall spell it in The
Silmarillion - was later.
Since Melkor could not 'create' an independent species, but
had immense powers of corruption and distortion of those that
came into his power, it is probable that these Orks had a mixed
origin. Most of them plainly (and biologically) were corruptions
of Elves (and probably later also of Men). But always among
them (as special servants and spies of Melkor, and as leaders)
there must have been numerous corrupted minor spirits who
assumed similar bodily shapes. (These would exhibit terrifying
and demonic characters.)
The Elves would have classed the creatures called 'trolls' (in
The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings) as Orcs - in character
and origin - but they were larger and slower. It would seem
evident that they were corruptions of primitive human types.
At the bottom of the page my father wrote: 'See The Lord of the
Rings Appendix p. 410'; this is the passage in Appendix F concerning
Trolls.
It seems possible that his opening words in this note 'This suggests -
though it is not explicit - that the <Orcs> were of Elvish origin
actually refer to the previous text given here, VIII, where he first wrote
that 'Elves, as a source, are very unlikely', but later concluded that 'it
remains therefore terribly possible there was an Elvish strain in the
Orcs'. But if this is so, the following words 'Their origin is more
clearly dealt with elsewhere' must refer to something else.
He now expressly asserts the earlier view (see p. 408 and note 1)
that the Orcs were in origin corrupted Elves, but observes that 'later'
some were probably derived from Men. In saying this (as the last
paragraph and the reference to The Lord of the Rings Appendix F
suggest) he seems to have been thinking of Trolls, and specifically of
the Olog-hai, the great Trolls who appeared at the end of the Third
Age (as stated in Appendix F): 'That Sauron bred them none doubted,
though from what stock was not known. Some held that they were not
Trolls but giant Orcs; but the Olog-hai were in fashion of body and
mind quite unlike even the largest of Orc-kind, whom they far sur-
passed in size and power.'
The conception that among the Orcs 'there must have been
numerous corrupted minor spirits who assumed similar bodily shapes'
appears also in text VIII (p. 410): 'Melkor had corrupted many spirits
- some great, as Sauron, or less so, as Balrogs. The least could have
been primitive (and much more powerful and perilous) Orcs'.
X.
I give here a text of an altogether different kind, a very finished essay
on the origin of the Orcs. It is necessary to explain something of the
relations of this text.
There is a major work, which I hope to publish in The History of
Middle-earth, entitled Essekenta Eldarinwa or Quendi and Eldar. It is
extant in a good typescript made by my father on his later typewriter,
both in top copy and carbon; and it is preceded in both copies by a
manuscript page which describes the content of the work:
Enquiry into the origins of the Elvish names for Elves
and their varieties clans and divisions: with Appendices
on their names for the other Incarnates: Men, Dwarves,
and Orcs; and on their analysis of their own language,
Quenya: with a note on the 'Language of the Valar'.
With the appendices Quendi and Eldar runs to nearly fifty closely
typed pages, and being a highly finished and lucid work is of the
utmost interest.
To one of the title pages my father subjoined the following:
To which is added an abbreviation of the Osanwe-kenta or
'Communication of Thought' that Pengolodh set at the end
of his Lammas or 'Account of Tongues'
This is a separate work of eight typescript pages, separately paginated,
but found together with both copies of Quendi and Eldar. In addition,
and not referred to on the title-pages, there is a further typescript of
four pages (also found with both copies of Quendi and Eldar) entitled
Orcs; and this is the text given here.
All three elements are identical in general appearance, but Orcs
stands apart from the others, having no linguistic bearing; and in view
of this I have thought it legitimate to abstract it and print it in this
book together with the other discussions of the origin of the Orcs
given as texts VIII and IX.
As to the date of this complex, one of the copies is preserved in a
folded newspaper of March 1960. On this my father wrote: '"Quendi
and Eldar" with Appendices'; beneath is a brief list of the Appendices,
the items all written at the same time, which includes both Osanwe
and Origin of Orcs (the same is true of the cover of the other copy of
the Quendi and Eldar complex). All the material was thus in being
when the newspaper was used for this purpose, and although, as in
other similar cases, this does not provide a perfectly certain terminus
ad quem, there seems no reason to doubt that it belongs to 1959 - 60
(cf. p. 304).
Appendix C to Quendi and Eldar, 'Elvish Names for the Orcs', is
primarily concerned with etymology, but it opens with the following
passage:
It is not here the place to debate the question of the origin of
the Orcs. They were bred by Melkor, and their breeding was the
most wicked and lamentable of his works in Arda, but not the
most terrible. For clearly they were meant in his malice to be a
mockery of the Children of Iluvatar, wholly subservient to his
will, and nursed in an unappeasable hatred of Elves and Men.
The Orcs of the later wars, after the escape of Melkor-
Morgoth and his return to Middle-earth, were neither spirits
nor phantoms, but living creatures, capable of speech and of
some crafts and organization, or at least capable of learning
such things from higher creatures or from their Master. They
bred and multiplied rapidly whenever left undisturbed. It is
unlikely, as a consideration of the ultimate origin of this race
would make clearer, that the Quendi had met any Orcs of this
kind, before their finding by Orome and the separation of Eldar
and Avari.
But it is known that Melkor had become aware of the Quendi
before the Valar began their war against him, and the joy of the
Elves in Middle-earth had already been darkened by shadows of
fear. Dreadful shapes had begun to haunt the borders of their
dwellings, and some of their people vanished into the darkness
and were heard of no more. Some of these things may have been
phantoms and delusions; but some were, no doubt, shapes
taken by the servants of Melkor, mocking and degrading the
very forms of the Children. For Melkor had in his service great
numbers of the Maiar, who had the power, as had their Master,
of taking visible and tangible shape in Arda.
No doubt my father was led from his words here 'It is unlikely, as a
consideration of the ultimate origin of this race would make clearer,
that the Quendi had met any Orcs of this kind, before their finding by
Orome' to write that 'consideration' which follows here. It will be
seen that one passage of this initial statement was re-used.
Orcs.
The origin of the Orcs is a matter of debate. Some have called
them the Melkorohini, the Children of Melkor; but the wiser
say: nay, the slaves of Melkor, but not his children; for Melkor
had no children.(1) Nonetheless, it was by the malice of Melkor
that the Orcs arose, and plainly they were meant by him to be a
mockery of the Children of Eru, being bred to be wholly
subservient to his will and filled with unappeasable hatred of
Elves and Men.
Now the Orcs of the later wars, after the escape of Melkor-
Morgoth and his return to Middle-earth, were not 'spirits', nor
phantoms, but living creatures, capable of speech and some
crafts and organization; or at least capable of learning these
things from higher creatures and from their Master. They bred
and multiplied rapidly, whenever left undisturbed. So far as can
be gleaned from the legends that have come down to us from
our earliest days,(2) it would seem that the Quendi had never yet
encountered any Orcs of this kind before the coming of Orome
to Cuivienen.
Those who believe that the Orcs were bred from some kind of
Men, captured and perverted by Melkor, assert that it was
impossible for the Quendi to have known of Orcs before the
Separation and the departure of the Eldar. For though the time
of the awakening of Men is not known, even the calculations of
the loremasters that place it earliest do not assign it a date long
before the Great March (3) began, certainly not long enough
before it to allow for the corruption of Men into Orcs. On the
other hand, it is plain that soon after his return Morgoth had at
his command a great number of these creatures, with whom he
ere long began to attack the Elves. There was still less time
between his return and these first assaults for the breeding of
Orcs and for the transfer of their hosts westward.
This view of the origin of the Orcs thus meets with difficulties
of chronology. But though Men may take comfort in this, the
theory remains nonetheless the most probable. It accords with
all that is known of Melkor, and of the nature and behaviour of
Orcs - and of Men. Melkor was impotent to produce any living
thing, but skilled in the corruption of things that did not
proceed from himself, if he could dominate them. But if he had
indeed attempted to make creatures of his own in imitation or
mockery of the Incarnates, he would, like Aule, only have
succeeded in producing puppets: his creatures would have acted
only while the attention of his will was upon them, and they
would have shown no reluctance to execute any command of
his, even if it were to destroy themselves.
But the Orcs were not of this kind. They were certainly
dominated by their Master, but his dominion was by fear, and
they were aware of this fear and hated him. They were indeed so
corrupted that they were pitiless, and there was no cruelty or
wickedness that they would not commit; but this was the
corruption of independent wills, and they took pleasure in their
deeds. They were capable of acting on their own, doing evil
deeds unbidden for their own sport; or if Morgoth and his
agents were far away, they might neglect his commands. They
sometimes fought [> They hated one another and often fought]
among themselves, to the detriment of Morgoth's plans.
Moreover, the Orcs continued to live and breed and to carry
on their business of ravaging and plundering after Morgoth was
overthrown. They had other characteristics of the Incarnates
also. They had languages of their own, and spoke among
themselves in various tongues according to differences of breed
that were discernible among them. They needed food and drink,
and rest, though many were by training as tough as Dwarves in
enduring hardship. They could be slain, and they were subject
to disease; but apart from these ills they died and were not
immortal, even according to the manner of the Quendi; indeed
they appear to have been by nature short-lived compared with
the span of Men of higher race, such as the Edain.
This last point was not well understood in the Elder Days. For
Morgoth had many servants, the oldest and most potent of
whom were immortal, belonging indeed in their beginning to
the Maiar; and these evil spirits like their Master could take on
visible forms. Those whose business it was to direct the Orcs
often took Orkish shapes, though they were greater and more
terrible.(4) Thus it was that the histories speak of Great Orcs or
Orc-captains who were not slain, and who reappeared in battle
through years far longer than the span of the lives of Men.*(5)
Finally, there is a cogent point, though horrible to relate. It
became clear in time that undoubted Men could under the
domination of Morgoth or his agents in a few generations be
reduced almost to the Orc-level of mind and habits; and then
they would or could be made to mate with Orcs, producing new
breeds, often larger and more cunning. There is no doubt that
long afterwards, in the Third Age, Saruman rediscovered this,
or learned of it in lore, and in his lust for mastery committed
this, his wickedest deed: the interbreeding of Orcs and Men,
(* [footnote to the text] Boldog, for instance, is a name that occurs
many times in the tales of the War. But it is possible that Boldog was
not a personal name, and either a title, or else the name of a kind
of creature: the Orc-formed Maiar, only less formidable than the
Balrogs.)
producing both Men-orcs large and cunning, and Orc-men
treacherous and vile.
But even before this wickedness of Morgoth was suspected
the Wise in the Elder Days taught always that the Orcs were not
'made' by Melkor, and therefore were not in their origin evil.
They might have become irredeemable (at least by Elves and
Men), but they remained within the Law. That is, that though of
necessity, being the fingers of the hand of Morgoth, they must
be fought with the utmost severity, they must not be dealt with
in their own terms of cruelty and treachery. Captives must not
be tormented, not even to discover information for the defence
of the homes of Elves and Men. If any Orcs surrendered and
asked for mercy, they must be granted it, even at a cost.* This
was the teaching of the Wise, though in the horror of the War it
was not always heeded.
It is true, of course, that Morgoth held the Orcs in dire
thraldom; for in their corruption they had lost almost all
possibility of resisting the domination of his will. So great
indeed did its pressure upon them become ere Angband fell that,
if he turned his thought towards them, they were conscious of
his 'eye' wherever they might be; and when Morgoth was at last
removed from Arda the Orcs that survived in the West were
scattered, leaderless and almost witless, and were for a long
time without control or purpose.
This servitude to a central will that reduced the Orcs almost
to an ant-like life was seen even more plainly in the Second and
Third Ages under the tyranny of Sauron, Morgoth's chief
lieutenant. Sauron indeed achieved even greater control over his
Orcs than Morgoth had done. He was, of course, operating on a
smaller scale, and he had no enemies so great and so fell as were
the Noldor in their might in the Elder Days. But he had also
inherited from those days difficulties, such as the diversity of the
Orcs in breed and language, and the feuds among them; while in
many places in Middle-earth, after the fall of Thangorodrim
and during the concealment of Sauron, the Orcs recovering
from their helplessness had set up petty realms of their own and
(* [footnote to the text] Few Orcs ever did so in the Elder Days, and
at no time would any Orc treat with any Elf. For one thing Morgoth
had achieved was to convince the Orcs beyond refutation that the
Elves were crueller than themselves, taking captives only for 'amuse-
ment', or to eat them (as the Orcs would do at need).)
had become accustomed to independence. Nonetheless Sauron
in time managed to unite them all in unreasoning hatred of the
Elves and of Men who associated with them; while the Orcs of
his own trained armies were so completely under his will that
they would sacrifice themselves without hesitation at his com-
mand.* And he proved even more skilful than his Master also in
the corruption of Men who were beyond the reach of the Wise,
and in reducing them to a vassalage, in which they would march
with the Orcs, and vie with them in cruelty and destruction.
It is thus probably to Sauron that we may look for a solution
of the problem of chronology. Though of immensely smaller
native power than his Master, he remained less corrupt, cooler
and more capable of calculation. At least in the Elder Days,
and before he was bereft of his lord and fell into the folly of
imitating him, and endeavouring to become himself supreme
Lord of Middle-earth. While Morgoth still stood, Sauron did
not seek his own supremacy, but worked and schemed for
another, desiring the triumph of Melkor, whom in the begin-
ning he had adored. He thus was often able to achieve things,
first conceived by Melkor, which his master did not or could not
complete in the furious haste of his malice.
We may assume, then, that the idea of breeding the Orcs
came from Melkor, not at first maybe so much for the provision
of servants or the infantry of his wars of destruction, as for the
defilement of the Children and the blasphemous mockery of
the designs of Eru. The details of the accomplishment of this
wickedness were, however, left mainly to the subtleties of
Sauron. In that case the conception in mind of the Orcs may go
far back into the night of Melkor's thought, though the
beginning of their actual breeding must await the awakening of
Men.
When Melkor was made captive, Sauron escaped and lay hid
in Middle-earth; and it can in this way be understood how the
breeding of the Orcs (no doubt already begun) went on with
increasing speed during the age when the Noldor dwelt in
Aman; so that when they returned to Middle-earth they found it
already infested with this plague, to the torment of all that dwelt
(* [footnote to the text] But there remained one flaw in his control,
inevitable. In the kingdom of hate and fear, the strongest thing is hate.
All his Orcs hated one another, and must be kept ever at war with
some 'enemy' to prevent them from slaying one another.)
there, Elves or Men or Dwarves. It was Sauron, also, who
secretly repaired Angband for the help of his Master when he
returned;(6) and there the dark places underground were already
manned with hosts of the Orcs before Melkor came back at last,
as Morgoth the Black Enemy, and sent them forth to bring ruin
upon all that was fair. And though Angband has fallen and
Morgoth is removed, still they come forth from the lightless
places in the darkness of their hearts, and the earth is withered
under their pitiless feet.
This then, as it may appear, was my father's final view of the
question: Orcs were bred from Men, and if 'the conception in mind of
the Orcs may go far back into the night of Melkor's thought' it was
Sauron who, during the ages of Melkor's captivity in Aman, brought
into being the black armies that were available to his Master when he
returned.
But, as always, it is not quite so simple. Accompanying one copy of
the typescript of this essay are some pages in manuscript for which my
father used the blank reverse sides of papers provided by the publishers
dated 10 November 1969. These pages carry two notes on the 'Orcs'
essay: one, discussing the spelling of the word orc, is given on p. 422;
the other is a note arising from something in the essay which is not
indicated, but which is obviously the passage on p. 417 discussing the
puppet-like nature inevitable in creatures brought into being by one of
the great Powers themselves: the note was intended to stand in relation
to the words 'But the Orcs were not of this kind'.
The orks, it is true, sometimes appear to have been reduced
to a condition very similar, though there remains actually a
profound difference. Those orks who dwelt long under the
immediate attention of his will - as garrisons of his strongholds
or elements of armies trained for special purposes in his
war-designs - would act like herds, obeying instantly, as if with
one will, his commands even if ordered to sacrifice their lives in
his service. And as was seen when Morgoth was at last
overthrown and cast out, those orks that had been so absorbed
scattered helplessly, without purpose either to flee or to fight,
and soon died or slew themselves.
Other originally independent creatures, and Men among
them (but neither Elves nor Dwarves), could also be reduced to
a like condition. But 'puppets', with no independent life or will,
would simply cease to move or do anything at all when the will
of their maker was brought to nothing. In any case the number
of orks that were thus 'absorbed' was always only a small part
of their total. To hold them in absolute servitude required a
great expense of will. Morgoth though in origin possessed of
vast power was finite; and it was this expenditure upon the
orks, and still more upon the other far more formidable
creatures in his service, that in the event so dissipated his powers
of mind that Morgoth's overthrow became possible. Thus the
greater part of the orks, though under his orders and the dark
shadow of their fear of him, were only intermittently objects of
his immediate thought and concern, and while that was re-
moved they relapsed into independence and became conscious
of their hatred of him and his tyranny. Then they might neglect
his orders, or engage in
Here the text breaks off. But the curious thing is that rough drafting
for the second paragraph of this note (written on the same paper
bearing the same date) begins thus:
But Men could (and can still) be reduced to such a condition.
'Puppets' would simply cease to move or 'live' at all, when not
set in motion by the direct will of their maker. In any case,
though the number of orks at the height of Morgoth's power,
and still after his return from captivity, seems to have been very
great, those who were 'absorbed' were always a small part of
the total.
The words that I have italicised deny an essential conception of the
essay.
The other note reads thus:
Orcs.
This spelling was taken from Old English. The word seemed,
in itself, very suitable to the creatures that 1 had in mind. But the
Old English orc in meaning - so far as that is known - is not
suitable.(7) Also the spelling of what, in the later more organized
linguistic situation, must have been a Common Speech form of a
word or group of similar words should be ork. If only because
of spelling difficulties in modern English: an adjective orc + ish
becomes necessary, and orcish will not do.(8) In any future publi-
cation I shall use ork.
In text IX (the brief writing in which my father declared the theory
of Elvish origin to be certain) he spelt the word Orks, and said 'so I
shall spell it in The Silmarillion'. In the present essay, obviously later
than text IX, it is spelt Orcs; but now, in 1969 or later, he asserted
again that it must be Orks.
NOTES.
1. See text VII, p. 406. - On one copy of the text my father pencilled
against this sentence the names Eruseni, Melkorseni.
2. 'legends that have come down to us from our earliest days'; this
purports then to be an Elvish writing. Sauron is spoken of
subsequently as a being of the past ('This servitude to a central will
... was seen even more plainly in the Second and Third Ages under
the tyranny of Sauron', p. 419); but in the last sentence of the essay
the Orcs are a plague that still afflicts the world.
3. The time of the Awakening of Men is now placed far back; cf. text
II (p. 378), The March of the Eldar is through great Rains? Men
awake in an Isle amid the floods'; 'The coming of Men will
therefore be much further back'; 'Men must awake while Melkor
is still in [Middle-earth] - because of their Fall. Therefore in some
period during the Great March' (see p. 385 note 14). In the
chronology of the Annals of Aman and the Grey Annals the Great
March began in the Year of the Trees 1105 (p. 82), and the
foremost companies of the Eldar came to the shores of the Great
Sea in 1125; Men awoke in Hildorien in the year of the first rising
of the Sun, which was the Year of the Trees 1500. Thus if the
Awakening of Men is placed even very late in the period of the
Great March of the Eldar it will be set back by more than 3500
Years of the Sun. See further p. 430 note 5.
4. Cf. text IX, p. 414: 'But always among them [Orcs] (as special
servants and spies of Melkor, and as leaders) there must have been
numerous corrupted minor spirits who assumed similar bodily
shapes'; also text VIII, p. 410.
5. The footnote at this point, stating that 'Boldog, for instance, is a
name that occurs many times in the tales of the War', and was
perhaps not a personal name, is curious. Boldog appears several
times in the Lay of Leithian as the name of the Orc-captain who
led a raid into Doriath (references in the Index to The Lays of
Beleriand); he reappears in the Quenta (IV.113), but is not
mentioned thereafter. I do not know of any other reference to an
Orc named Boldog.
6. On the later story that Angband was built by Melkor in the ancient
days and that it was commanded by Sauron see p. 156, $12. There
has been no reference to the repairing of Angband against
Morgoth's return, and cf. the last narrative development in the
Quenta Silmarillion of the story of his return (p. 295, $14):
Morgoth and Ungoliant 'were drawing near to the ruins of
Angband where his great western stronghold had been.'
7. See p. 124.
8. 'orcish will not do': because it would be pronounced 'orsish'. The
Orkish language was so spelt in The Lord of the Rings from the
First Edition.
XI.
This concluding text, entitled Aman, is a clear manuscript written with
little hesitation or correction. I had regarded it as an independent
essay, and in doubt where best to place it had left it to the end; but
when this book had been fully completed and prepared for publication
I realised that it stands in fact in very close relationship to the
manuscript of Athrabeth Finrod ah Andreth.
That manuscript opens with an introductory section (given in the type-
script version that my father subsequently made, pp. 304 - 5), beginning
with the statement that some Men believed that their hroar were not
by nature short-lived, but had become so by the malice of Melkor. I
had not observed the significance of some lines at the head of this first
page of the Athrabeth, which my father had struck through: these lines
begin with the words 'the hroa, and it would live on, a witless body,
not even a beast but a monster', and end '... Death itself, in either
agony or horror, would with Men enter into Aman itself.' Now this
passage is virtually identical to the conclusion of the present text, the
last page of which begins at precisely the same point.
It is clear, therefore, that Aman originally led into the Athrabeth,
but that my father removed it to stand alone and copied out the
concluding passage on a separate sheet. At the same time, presumably,
he gave the remainder (the Athrabeth and its introduction) the titles
Of Death and the Children of Eru, and the Marring of Men and The
Converse of Finrod and Andreth.(1)
It might have been preferable to place Aman with the Athrabeth in
Part Four; but I thought it unnecessary at such a late stage to embark
on a major upheaval of the structure of the book, and so left it to stand
separately here.
Aman.
In Aman things were far otherwise than in Middle-earth. But
they resembled the mode of Elvish life, just as the Elves more
nearly resemble the Valar and Maiar than do Men.
In Aman the length of the unit of 'year' was the same as it was
for the Quendi. But for a different reason. In Aman this length
was assigned by the Valar for their own purposes, and was
related to that process which may be called the 'Ageing of
Arda'. For Aman was within Arda and therefore within the
Time of Arda (which was not eternal, whether Unmarred or
Marred). Therefore Arda and all things in it must age, however
slowly, as it proceeds from beginning to end. This ageing could
be perceived by the Valar in about that length of time (propor-
tionate to the whole of Arda's appointed span) which they
called a Year; but not in a less period.(2)
But as for the Valar themselves, and the Maiar also in their
degree: they could live at any speed of thought or motion which
they chose or desired.*(3)
* They could move backward or forward in thought, and return
again so swiftly that to those who were in their presence they
did not appear to have moved. All that was past they could
fully perceive; but being now in Time the future they could only
perceive or explore in so far as its design was made clear to them in
the Music, or as each one of them was specially concerned with
this or that part of Eru's design, being His agent or Subcreator. In
this way of perception they could foresee none of the acts of the
Children, Elves and Men, in whose conceiving and introduction
into Ea none of the Valar had played any part at all; concerning
the Children they could only deduce likelihood, in the same way as
can the Children themselves, though from a far greater knowledge
of facts and the contributory events of the past, and with far
greater intelligence and wisdom. Yet there always remained an
uncertainty with regard to the words and deeds of Elves and Men
in Time not yet unfolded.
The unit, or Valian Year, was thus not in Aman related to the
natural rates of 'growth' of any person or thing that dwelt there.
Time in Aman was actual time, not merely a mode of percep-
tion. As, say, 100 years went by in Middle-earth as part of Arda,
so 100 years passed in Aman, which was also a part of Arda.
It was, however, the fact that the Elvish speed of 'growth'
accorded with the unit of Valian time + that made it possible for
the Valar to bring the Eldar to dwell in Aman. In one Valian
(+ Not by the design of the Valar, though doubtless not by chance.
That is, it may be that Eru in designing the natures of Elves and
Men and their relations one to another and to the Valar ordained
that the 'growth' of the Elves should accord with the Valian
perception of the progress or ageing of Arda, so that the Elves
should be able to cohabit with the Valar and Maiar. Since the
Children appeared in the Music, and also in the Vision, the Valar
knew something or indeed much of the ordained natures of Elves
and Men before they came into existence. They knew certainly
that Elves should be 'immortal' or of very long life, and Men of
brief life. But it was probably only during the sojourn of Orome
among the fathers of the Quendi that the Valar discovered)
precisely what was the mode of their lives with regard to the lapse
of Time.)
year the Eldar dwelling there grew and developed in much the
same way as mortals did in one year upon Middle-earth. In
recording the events in Aman, therefore, we may as did the
Eldar themselves use the Valian unit,(4) though we must not
forget that within any such 'year' the Eldar enjoyed an immense
series of delights and achievements which even the most gifted
of Men could not accomplish in twelve times twelve mortal
years.(5) Nonetheless the Eldar 'aged' at the same speed in Aman
as they had done in their beginning upon Middle-earth.
But the Eldar were not native to Aman, which had not been,
by the Valar, designed for them. In Aman, before their coming,
there had dwelt only the Valar and their lesser kindred the
Maiar. But for their delight and use there were in Aman also
a great multitude of creatures, without fear, of many kinds:
animals or moving creatures, and plants that are steadfast.
There, it is believed, were the counterparts of all the creatures
that are or have been on Earth,(6) and others also that were made
for Aman only. And each kind had, as on Earth, its own nature
and natural speed of growth.
But since Aman was made for the Valar, that they might have
peace and delight therein, ail those creatures that were thither
transplanted or were trained or bred or brought into being for
the purpose of inhabitation in Aman were given a speed of
growth such that one year of the life natural to their kinds on
Earth should in Aman be one Valian Year.
For the Eldar this was a source of joy. For in Aman the world
appeared to them as it does to Men on Earth, but without the
shadow of death soon to come. Whereas on Earth to them all
things in comparison with themselves were fleeting, swift to
change and die or pass away, in Aman they endured and did not
so soon cheat love with their mortality. On Earth while an
elf-child did but grow to be a man or a woman, in some 3000
years, forests would rise and fall, and all the face of the land
would change, while birds and flowers innumerable would be
born and die in loar upon loar under the wheeling Sun.
But beside all this Aman is called also the Blessed Realm, and
in this was found its blessedness: in health and joy. For in Aman
no creatures suffered any sickness or disorder of their natures;
nor was there any decay or ageing more swift than the slow
ageing of Arda itself. So that all things coming at last to fullness
of form and virtue remained in that state, blissfully, ageing and
wearying of their life and being no swifter than the Valar
themselves. And this blessing also was granted to the Eldar.
On earth the Quendi suffered no sickness, and the health of
their bodies was supported by the might of the longeval fear.
But their bodies, being of the stuff of Arda, were nonetheless not
so enduring as their spirits; for the longevity of the Quendi was
derived primarily from their fear, whose nature or 'doom' was
to abide in Arda until its end. Therefore, after the vitality of the
hroa was expended in achieving full growth, it began to weaken
or grow weary. Very slowly indeed, but to all the Quendi
perceptibly. For a while it would be fortified and maintained by
its indwelling fea, and then its vitality would begin to ebb, and
its desire for physical life and joy in it would pass ever more
swiftly away. Then an Elf would begin (as they say now, for
these things did not fully appear in the Elder Days) to 'fade',
until the fea as it were consumed the hroa until it remained only
in the love and memory of the spirit that had inhabited it.
But in Aman, since its blessing descended upon the hroar of
the Eldar, as upon all other bodies, the hroar aged only apace
with the fear, and the Eldar that remained in the Blessed Realm
endured in full maturity and in undimmed power of body and
spirit conjoined for ages beyond our mortal comprehension.
Aman and Mortal Men.(7)
If it is thus in Aman, or was ere the Change of the World, and
therein the Eldar had health and lasting joy, what shall we say
of Men? No Man has ever set foot in Aman, or at least none has
ever returned thence; for the Valar forbade it. Why so? To the
Numenoreans they said that they did so because Eru had
forbidden them to admit Men to the Blessed Realm; and they
declared also that Men would not there be blessed (as they
imagined) but accursed, and would 'wither even as a moth in a
flame too bright'.
Beyond these words we can but go in guess. Yet we may con-
sider the matter so. The Valar were not only by Eru forbidden
the attempt, they could not alter the nature, or 'doom' of Eru, of
any of the Children, in which was included the speed of their
' growth (relative to the whole life of Arda) and the length of their
: life-span. Even the Eldar in that respect remained unchanged.
Let us suppose then that the Valar had also admitted to Aman
some of the Atani, and (so that we may consider a whole life of
a Man in such a state) that 'mortal' children were there born, as
were children of the Eldar. Then, even though in Aman, a
mortal child would still grow to maturity in some twenty years
of the Sun, and the natural span of its life, the period of the
cohesion of hroa and fea, would be no more than, say, 100
years. Not much more, even though his body would suffer no
sickness or disorder in Aman, where no such evils existed.
(Unless Men brought these evils with them - as why should they
not? Even the Eldar brought to the Blessed Realm some taint of
the Shadow upon Arda in which they came into being.)
But in Aman such a creature would be a fleeting thing, the
most swift-passing of all beasts. For his whole life would last
little more than one half-year, and while all other living
creatures would seem to him hardly to change, but to remain
steadfast in life and joy with hope of endless years undimmed,
he would rise and pass - even as upon Earth the grass may rise
in spring and wither ere the winter. Then he would become
filled with envy, deeming himself a victim of injustice, being
denied the graces given to all other things. He would not value
what he had, but feeling that he was among the least and most
despised of all creatures, he would grow soon to contemn his
manhood, and hate those more richly endowed. He would not
escape the fear and sorrow of his swift mortality that is his lot
upon Earth, in Arda Marred, but would be burdened by it
unbearably to the loss of all delight.
But if any should ask: why could not in Aman the blessing of
longevity be granted to him, as it was to the Eldar? This must be
answered. Because this would bring joy to the Eldar, their
nature being different from that of Men. The nature of an Elvish
fea was to endure the world to the end, and an Elvish hroa was
also longeval by nature; so that an Elvish fea finding that its
hroa endured with it, supporting its indwelling and remaining
unwearied in bodily delight, would have increased and more
lasting joy [sic]. Some indeed of the Eldar doubt that any special
grace or blessing was accorded to them, other than admittance
to Aman. For they hold that the failure of their hroar to endure
in vitality unwearied as long as their fear - a process which was
not observed until the later ages - is due to the Marring of Arda,
and comes of the Shadow, and of the taint of Melkor that
touches all the matter (or hroa)(8) of Arda, if not indeed of all Ea.
So that all that happened in Aman was that this weakness of the
Elvish hroar did not develop in the health of Aman and the
Light of the Trees.
But let us suppose that the 'blessing of Aman' was also
accorded to Men.* What then? Would a great good be done to
them? Their bodies would still come swiftly to full growth. In
the seventh part of a year a Man could be born and become
full-grown, as swiftly as in Aman a bird would hatch and fly
from the nest. But then it would not wither or age but would
endure in vigour and in the delight of bodily living. But what of
that Man's fea? Its nature and 'doom' could not be changed,
neither by the health of Aman nor by the will of Manwe himself.
Yet it is (as the Eldar hold) its nature and doom under the will of
Eru that it should not endure Arda for long, but should depart
and go elsewhither, returning maybe direct to Eru for another
fate or purpose that is beyond the knowledge or guess of the
Eldar.
Very soon then the fea and hroa of a Man in Aman would not
be united and at peace, but would be opposed, to the great pain
of both. The hroa being in full vigour and joy of life would cling
to the fea, lest its departure should bring death; and against
death it would revolt as would a great beast in full life either flee
from the hunter or turn savagely upon him. But the fea would
be as it were in prison, becoming ever more weary of all the
delights of the hroa, until they were loathsome to it, longing
ever more and more to be gone, until even those matters for its
thought that it received through the hroa and its senses became
meaningless. The Man would not be blessed, but accursed; and
he would curse the Valar and Aman and all the things of Arda.
And he would not willingly leave Aman, for that would mean
rapid death, and he would have to be thrust forth with violence.
But if he remained in Aman,(9) what should he come to, ere Arda
were at last fulfiilled and he found release? Either his fea would
be wholly dominated by the hroa, and he would become more
like a beast, though one tormented within. Or else, if his fea
were strong, it would leave the hroa. Then one of two things
would happen: either this would be accomplished only in hate,
(* Or (as some Men hold) that their hroar are not by nature short-
lived, but have become so through the malice of Melkor over and
above the general marring of Arda, and that this hurt could be healed
and undone in Aman.)
by violence, and the hroa, in full life, would be rent and die in
sudden agony; or else the fea would in loathing and without
pity desert the hroa, and it would live on, a witless body, not
even a beast but a monster, a very work of Melkor in the midst
of Aman, which the Valar themselves would fain destroy.
Now these things are but matters of thought, and might-have-
beens; for Eru and the Valar under Him have not permitted
Men as they are (10) to dwell in Aman. Yet at least it may be seen
that Men in Aman would not escape the dread of death, but
would have it in greater degree and for long ages. And moreover,
it seems probable that death itself, either in agony or horror,
would with Men enter into Aman itself.
At this point Aman as originally written (see p. 424) continued with
the words 'Now some Men hold that their hroar are not indeed by
nature short-lived ...', which became the beginning of the introduc-
tory passage to the Athrabeth (see p. 304).
NOTES.
1. The number III and a further title The Marring of Men (the other
titles remaining) was given to the second part, while Aman was
numbered II. No writing numbered I is found.
2. It will be seen that, as a consequence of the transformation of the
'cosmogonic myth', a wholly new conception of the 'Valian Year'
had entered. The elaborate computation of Time in the Annals of
Aman (see pp. 49 - 51, 59 - 60) was based on the 'cycle' or' the Two
Trees that had ceased to exist in relation to the diurnal movement
of the Sun that had come into being - there was a 'new
reckoning'. But the 'Valian Year' is now, as it appears, a 'unit of
perception' of the passage of the Time of Arda, derived from the
capacity of the Valar to perceive at such intervals the process of
the ageing of Arda from its beginning to its end. See note 5.
3. My father wrote the following passage ('They could move
backward or forward in thought ...') in the body of the
manuscript at this point, but in a small italic script, and I have
preserved this form in the text printed; similarly with the
following passage that interrupts the main text at the words 'the
unit of Valian time'.
4. 'we may... use the Valian unit': in other words, presumably, the
old structure of dates in the chronicle of Aman may be retained,
although the meaning of those dates in terms of Middle-earth will
be radically different. See note 5.
5. There is now a vast discrepancy between Valian Years and
'mortal years'; cf. also 'his whole life would last little more than
one half-year' (p. 428), 'In the seventh part of a year a Man could
be born and become full-grown' (p. 429). In notes not given in
this book, in which my father was calculating on this basis the
time of the Awakening of Men, he expressly stated that 144 Sun
Years = 1 Valian Year (in this connection see Appendix D to The
Lord of the Rings: 'It seems clear that the Eldar in Middle-earth
... reckoned in long periods, and the Quenya word yen... really
means 144 of our years'). Placing the event 'after or about the
time of the sack of Utumno, Valian Year 1100' (see pp. 75, 80), a
gigantic lapse of time could now be conceived between the
'arising' of Men and their first appearance in Beleriand.
6. For this use of 'Earth' in opposition to 'Aman', very frequent in
this essay, see p. 282.
7. The sub-heading Aman and Mortal Men was a later addition.
8. With this use of the word hroa cf. text VII, p. 399: 'the hroa, the
"flesh" or physical matter, of Arda'.
9. This passage, from 'And he would not willingly leave Aman ...',
was a later addition. As the text was written, it continued on
from 'all the things of Arda' to 'And what should he come to...'
10. The words 'as they are' were a later addition of the same time as
those referred to in notes 7 and 9.
APPENDIX.
SYNOPSIS OF THE TEXTS.
This list is intended as no more than a very concise statement of the
manuscripts and typescripts referred to in this book (other than those
in Part Five).
Ainulindale.
B. Manuscript, dating from the 1930s, given in V.155 ff.
C*. Author's typescript, introducing radical changes in the cos-
mology, in existence by 1948; see pp. 3 - 7, 39 ff.
C. Rewriting of B, using the old manuscript (see pp. 3, 7); given
in full pp. 8 ff.
D. Fine manuscript, the last version of the Ainulindale', de-
veloped from C; given in part pp. 29 ff.
Annals of Valinor
AV 1. 'The Earliest Annals of Valinor', given in IV.262 ff.
AV 2. 'The Later Annals of Valinor', given in V.109 ff.
- For the rewriting of the opening of AV 2 preceding the
Annals of Aman see p. 47.
Annals of Aman.
AAm. Manuscript, dating from the early 1950s, given in full
pp. 48 ff; divided editorially into six sections followed by
notes and commentary.
AAm*. Author's typescript of the opening of AAm, with many
departures from the manuscript (pp. 64 - 8, 79 - 80).
AAm typescript. Amanuensis typescript, dating from about 1958 (see
pp. 141 - 2, 300). Annotations and alterations made to this
are given at the end of the commentaries on each section of
AAm.
Quenta Silmarillion.
Q. 'The Quenta' (Qenta Noldorinwa), dating from 1930, given
in IV.76 ff.
QS. Quenta Silmarillion, fine manuscript abandoned at the end of
1937, given in V.199 ff.
QS typescript. Author's typescript; new text (entitled Eldanyare) of
the opening chapters, dating from December 1937 - January
1938 (see p. 143).
LQ 1. 'Later Quenta 1', amanuensis typescript of revised QS, made
in 1951( - 2); see p. 141.
LQ 2. 'Later Quenta 2', amanuensis typescript incorporating all
alterations made to LQ 1, made about 1958; see pp. 141 - 2.
LQ. For the uses of this abbreviation see pp. 184, 200.
Laws and Customs among the Eldar.
A. Manuscript, given in full in its latter part (pp. 233 ff.), from
the point where the typescript B breaks off (see pp. 207 - 8).
B. Author's typescript, unfinished, given in full pp. 209 ff.
Late recasting and development of parts of
The Silmarillion.
Vq 1. Author's typescript developed from LQ 2 Chapter 1 'Of the
Valar' (see pp. 199 - 200).
Vq 2. Author's typescript following Vq 1, entitled Valaquenta
(pp. 200 ff.).
FM 1. Manuscript rider to QS; the first text treating the story of
Finwe and Miriel (pp. 205 ff.).
FM 2. Author's typescript, second text of the story of Finwe and
Miriel in the Silmarillion narrative (pp. 254 - 5 ff.).
FM 3. Author's typescript, superseded by FM 4; see pp. 255 - 6.
FM 4. Author's typescript, final text of the story of Finwe and
Miriel; given in full pp. 256 ff.
A. Author's typescript (continuation of FM 3), superseded by B;
see pp. 271 - 2, 282.
B. Author's typescript (continuation of FM 4), the last, and
extensively developed, text of the remainder of the original
Chapter 6 and the beginning of Chapter 7 (pp. 272 ff.).
Athrabeth.
A. Manuscript, given (with author's typescript version of the
introductory section) in full pp. 304 ff.
B,C. Amanuensis typescripts (see p. 303).
Commentary. Author's typescript of the Commentary on the
Athrabeth, with extensive notes; given in full pp. 329 ff.